Michelle Karnes Imagination, Meditation, and Cognition in the Middle AgesImagination, Meditation, and Cognition in the Middle Ages. Michelle Karnes. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011. Pp. x+268.

Abstract

Chapter 3 extends the analysis of Bonaventurian imagination to his own Passion meditations, especially the Lignum vitae, the Vitis mystica, and De perfectione vitae ad sorores. While acknowledging, among other influences, the Anselmian and Cistercian contributions to the gospel meditation genre, this chapter shows the continuity of Bonaventure’s theological account of cognition with his reflections on the nature and purpose of imaginal meditation. Here, Karnes addresses what she sees as an overly restrictive emphasis on the affective nature of the genre and demonstrates persuasively that the affective and emotive language of these meditations need not rule out consideration of the cognitive purposes they serve. The Lignum vitae places the reader imaginatively and emotionally in the physical place of Jesus’s companions, with the result that the meditant gains intimate and direct knowledge of Christ. This affective and sensory experience serves as the basis for ascent to knowledge of Christ’s divinity, exemplifying the journey from the sensible to the intelligible that occurs via Christ in every act of knowing.