Pub Date : 2021-09-16DOI: 10.1093/OSO/9780190907365.003.0003
G. Hernández
The second chapter initiates the comparative readings by examining the dynamics of absence and presence through the lenses of poetry and theological meaning. Read together, the Cántico and Rāsa Līlā bring into focus the capacity of poetry to evoke the presence of God. But in the two poems most of such evocations take place not through descriptive narratives but through intimations of God’s presence when he is not obviously there. The two sections that comprise this second chapter—“Singing the Absent God” and “Looking for God in Nature”—examine the means by which the Cántico’s female lover (the Amada) and Kṛṣṇa’s lovers (the gopīs) search for their hidden lovers and invoke his presence. In their commentaries, John and the Gauḍīya theologians explain God’s absence and presence as the two sides of the coin of God’s love.
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Pub Date : 2021-07-22DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190907365.003.0005
G. Hernández
The last comparative chapter attends to the poetic imagery of merging used to describe the meeting of the divine lover and the beloveds. The first section, “Together,” examines how the Amada and her lover drink together and how the gopīs dance with Kṛṣṇa by the Yamunā River. The main question of the theological commentaries is how much the divine and his lovers actually turn into each other, and how this manages to occur even as a gap is retained for the sake of the enjoyment and for allowing the love to flow between them. The second section, “Secretly,” dwells on the secret of how God loves and is loved, as disguised in the intricate metaphors of the poetry. The commentaries on both sides resort to the theopoetic strategy of constructing metaphorical layers that simultaneously reveal and occlude the meaning of God’s love.
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Pub Date : 2021-07-22DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190907365.003.0004
G. Hernández
While the site of inquiry for a theopoetic comparison of “savoring” is language, in mystical texts one cannot extricate language from embodiment. Chapter 3 brings into focus the sensorial imagery of the poetry asking how these images, often erotic, are interpreted by the commentators. This chapter is composed of two sections, “Sight” and “Sound,” dealing with the two most prominent senses in the poems, which function synesthetically—incorporating the activity of the other senses. Being more subtle in the Cántico, and more obvious in Rāsa Līlā, the sensorial exchange in both cases is never completely direct. The commentators are tasked with explaining images of reflection and refraction, sounds and harmony, that represent the simultaneous absence and presence of God. Readers are invited to understand the sensorial, embodied, and spiritual dimensions not as separate, but as participating on their own terms in the experience of savoring God.
{"title":"Sensorial Theopoetics","authors":"G. Hernández","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780190907365.003.0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190907365.003.0004","url":null,"abstract":"While the site of inquiry for a theopoetic comparison of “savoring” is language, in mystical texts one cannot extricate language from embodiment. Chapter 3 brings into focus the sensorial imagery of the poetry asking how these images, often erotic, are interpreted by the commentators. This chapter is composed of two sections, “Sight” and “Sound,” dealing with the two most prominent senses in the poems, which function synesthetically—incorporating the activity of the other senses. Being more subtle in the Cántico, and more obvious in Rāsa Līlā, the sensorial exchange in both cases is never completely direct. The commentators are tasked with explaining images of reflection and refraction, sounds and harmony, that represent the simultaneous absence and presence of God. Readers are invited to understand the sensorial, embodied, and spiritual dimensions not as separate, but as participating on their own terms in the experience of savoring God.","PeriodicalId":442110,"journal":{"name":"Savoring God","volume":"68 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133864019","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-22DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190907365.003.0002
G. Hernández
While the notion of theopoetic is modern, the concept existed long before the term was coined by twentieth-century theologians. Chapter 1 introduces in detail John of the Cross’s notion of gustar a Dios (to savor God) and the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava concept of madhura bhakti rasa—“the sweet savor of divine love”—as analogous models of theopoetic. Each of these sixteenth-century theologians deploys the term “savoring” within his own context, and does so toward two ends: to describe the all-encompassing relationship between the person and the divine illustrated in the poetry; and to prescribe a mode of interpreting the verses that leads readers into a similar experience. In both cases, the poems’ commentaries not only explain the theological meaning of the poems but also recreate their metaphorical language. This use of poetry to communicate theological meaning is identified as the practice of theopoetic. The first chapter closes with an elucidation of the book’s methodology.
虽然神学的概念是现代的,但这个概念早在20世纪神学家创造这个词之前就存在了。第一章详细介绍了十字架约翰的gustar a Dios(品味上帝)的概念和Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava madhura bhakti rasa的概念——“神圣之爱的甜蜜品味”——作为神学的类似模型。这些16世纪的神学家都在自己的语境中使用了“品味”这个词,这样做有两个目的:描述诗歌中所描绘的人与神之间包罗万象的关系;并规定了一种解释经文的模式,引导读者进入类似的体验。在这两种情况下,诗歌的注释不仅解释了诗歌的神学意义,而且重新创造了它们的隐喻语言。这种用诗歌来传达神学意义的做法被认为是神学的实践。第一章以对本书方法论的阐述结束。
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