M-ary Search Research Articles

La Vierge en quête de Jésus pendant la Passion. Entrelacs médiévaux et folkloriques entre l’Italie et la Grèce : rapprochements et questions ouvertes

AbstractAt the center of the study is the motif spread in Italy and Greece, in the Middle Ages and in folklore, of Mary's search for Jesus during the Passion. The historiographical and philological reconstruction of the motif takes its cue from a medieval Italian text, the “Pianto delle Marie marchigiano”, and first investigates modern Italian songs, to show their continuity with the Middle Ages; then the observation expands to the Hellenic “moirologia”, to highlight the strong resemblance to the Italic counterparts; we therefore try to bring these similarities back to historical unity, showing that we are dealing with two forms in which a long-lasting cultural memory persists.

Parents Just Don't Understand: Ambiguity in Stories about the Childhood of Jesus

The childhood and teenage years, which we think of as crucial to the formation of the adult personality, go all but unnoticed in the canonical accounts of the life of Jesus. Only the Gospel of Luke includes a story about a twelve-year-old Jesus debating with religious experts in the Jerusalem temple and arguing with his parents. Synopses and commentaries sometimes refer to the episode as the “Finding of Jesus in the Temple” (Luke 2:41–52 NRSV), because it begins when his parents lose track of him. Mary and Joseph, having taken Jesus with them on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem for Passover, begin to make the journey back home to Nazareth. Jesus remains in Jerusalem, without his parents’ permission: “but his parents did not know it” (καὶ οὐκ ἔγνωσαν οἱ γονες [Luke 2:43]). Mary and Joseph search for and find their son “after three days” (2:46), safe and sound, in the great temple of Jerusalem. The boy sits among the elders, asking questions and amazing all with his “understanding” (σύνεσις [2:47]). “Child, why have you done this to us?” Mary reproaches Jesus, “See, your father and I have been worried [ὀδυνώμενοι] looking for you!” (2:48). “Why were you looking for me?” Jesus replies, “Did you not know [οὐκ ᾔδειτε] that I must concern myself with the things of my father?” (2:49). The back and forth confuses the parents: “But they did not understand what he said to them” (καὶ αὐτοὶ οὐ συνκαν τὸ ῥμα ὃ ἐλάλησεν αὐτος [Luke 2:50]).

Centre Stage Diagramming: Late-stage Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease

AbstractUsing the method of centre stage diagramming, this 3-year [2007–2009] longitudinal study reports a single case study of Ben and Mary that maps the onset of Alzheimer's disease within Ben's late-stage Parkinson's disease and the impact, adjustment and meaning that this had for the couple. It is believed that that this is the first time that such a transition has been documented within a qualitative research design. The importance of Ben and Mary obtaining a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease is reported as the diagnosis helped to locate the meaning of Ben's memory and behavioural changes within a ‘dementia’ context, rather than as an extension of late-onset Parkinson's disease as was originally considered by the couple. Ben and Mary's search for stability within their life once the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease was made is also shared. The couple was recruited from the caseload of a Parkinson's disease nurse specialist in North Wales and the couple was visited five times over the duration of the study. All interviews were conducted in Ben and Mary's own home and with their full involvement in the development and reporting of each centre stage diagram. Policy and practice implications are also considered.

Chaucer's Vision of the Tree of Life: Crossing the Road with the Rood in the Parson's Tale

At the end of the Canterbury Tales Chaucer's Parson promises To shewe yow the wey, in this viage, Of thilke parfit glorious pilgrymage That highte Jerusalem celestial (X 49–51),1 ostensibly by means of a reading from Jeremiah 6.16—"State super vias, et videte, et interrogate de viis antiquis que sit via bona, et ambulate in ea; et invenietis refrigerium animabus vestris, etc." (X 75)—which he translates, "Stondeth upon the weyes, and seeth and axeth of olde pathes (that is to seyn, of olde sentences) which is the goode wey,/ and walketh in that wey, and ye shal fynde refresshynge for youre soules, etc." (X 77–78). This promise seems a right and fitting way to end the Canterbury pilgrimage, and we might expect an elaboration of the pilgrimage metaphor with regard to penitence, a common enough topos in Chaucer's time. Chaucer's main source for the Parson's Tale, Raymund of Penaforte's Summa de poenitentia et matrimonio, does just this elaboration through its exegesis of the "viam trium dierum in solitudine" (three-day journey in the desert) from Exodus and the Virgin Mary's search for her son (III.xxxiv.7).2 Surprisingly, however, the Parson's Tale provides us with an account of penitence using the metaphor of a tree (X 112): penitence itself, Chaucer asserts, is "the tree of lyf" (X 127). But where does this tree come from? And how does this image of stability come to replace the motion of peregrination? The shift of metaphors from journey to tree illustrates the fluid conversation between the literary and visual cultures of the late fourteenth century, and is itself a product of an increasingly educated laity in an age [End Page 341] of increasingly affective religious activity. Although the Parson's Tale is sometimes viewed as a "mere" translation of Raymund's Summa, this displacement of metaphoric structure is an indicator of the transformative complexity of Chaucer's work.3 By replacing Raymund's scholarly exegetical analysis of the journey with the simple and homely image of a tree that can be found painted on many a parish church wall, not to mention actually standing in many a yard, orchard, and woodland, Chaucer presents a theory of penitence that resonates with the lay spirituality of his time, offering a process through which one can live a spiritual life in the world, rather than a choice between the worldly and the spiritual. In speaking of the Parson's Tale as a translation of Raymund's Summa, it behooves us to consider how medieval theories of translation might obtain to Chaucer's enterprise. In other words, what did Chaucer think he was doing? Paul Beekman Taylor reminds us that "Chaucer and his contemporaries considered themselves transmitters more than inventors of story," and in such a context translation is "a linguistic activity which fits his local and topical English idiom to foreign and often worn and ancient literary ideas."4 Hence, to a medieval intellect, "translate signals the act of recodifying language," and we can examine the nature of the changes that Chaucer makes to his source as such. A pattern of omissions, additions, and variations in the translation constitutes Chaucer's "hermeneutic procedure" in interpreting his sources as he performs an act of exegesis by placing material in a "doctrinal" context, just as the medieval commentary tradition relates a text to a larger body of ideas. In this case, the translator mediates distinct and divergent zones of time, space and cultural perspectives. He transforms the letter of a source text to the spirit, or understanding of an audience of which, as a rule, he is himself a member.5 Jeanette Beer adds her agreement that "in the fullest sense...