The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints, Vol. 2

De Voragine, Jacobus; Ryan, William Granger

ISBN 10: 0691001545 / ISBN 13: 9780691001548

Edité par Princeton University Press, 1995

A propos de cet article

Used - Acceptable: All pages and the cover are intact, but shrink wrap, dust covers, or boxed set case may be missing. Pages may include limited notes, highlighting, or minor water damage but the text is readable. Pages may include limited notes and highlighting, but the text cannot be obscured or unreadable. Any access codes or passwords originally included with the book may be expired, used or no longer valid. Image is stock photo and cover art edition may be different than pictured.

N° de réf. du vendeur MERV.0691001545.A

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints, Vol. 2
• Éditeur: Princeton University Press
• Date de parution: 1995
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN à 10 chiffres: 0691001545
• ISBN à 13 chiffres: 9780691001548
• Reliure: Couverture souple
• État de l'article: acceptable

A propos de ce titre

Synopsis

Depicting the lives of the saints in an array of both factual and fictional stories--some preposterous, some profound, and some shocking--The Golden Legend was perhaps the most widely read book, after the Bible, during the late Middle Ages. It was compiled around 1260 by Jacobus de Voragine, a scholarly friar and eventual archbishop of Genoa, whose purpose was to captivate, encourage, and edify the faithful, while preserving a vast store of information pertaining to the legends and traditions of the church. In his new translation, the first in English of the complete text, William Granger Ryan captures the immediacy of this rich, image-filled work, and offers an important guide for readers interested in medieval art and literature and, more generally, in popular religious culture.

These stories have the effect of bringing the saints to life as real people, in the context of late thirteenth-century living, but in them the saints do things that ordinary people can only wonder at. There is St. Juliana, who, fed up with the propositions of a dull-witted demon, gives him a sound thrashing and tosses him in the sewer; St. Hilary, who challenges the authority of a corrupt pope and foresees the prelate's death; and St. James the Dismembered, who, with the chopping off of each body part by the Roman executioner, joyfully proclaims yet another reason for loving God.

In the course of reading these stories, which are arranged according to the order of saints' feast days throughout the liturgical year, we happen upon many fascinating cultural and historical topics, such as the Christianization of Roman holidays, the symbolism behind the monk's tonsure, Nero's "pregnancy," and the reason why chaste but hot-blooded women can grow beards. At the same time these stories draw abundantly on Holy Scripture to shed light on the mysteries of the Christian faith. The chapters devoted to Christ and to the Blessed Virgin are particularly moving examples of the mingling of doctrine and narrative to give life to dogma.

À propos de l'auteur

William Granger Ryan, a priest of the diocese of Brooklyn and Queens, is President Emeritus of Seton Hill College and a research scholar at the Institute of Sacred Music, Worship, and the Arts, Yale University. This new translation of The Golden Legend (Ryan translated portions of the work in a volume published in 1941) is the first complete rendering of the Graesse edition in English.