중세 여성 명상가와 비천함의 탐닉
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In Powers of Horror, Julia Kristeva advances the term, “abjection,” to denote the process of establishing one’s self by casting off what is unpalatable and seems alien to him/her. The abject—what is cast off—is, therefore, neither a subject, nor an object, because it is not yet a separate other, but still a part of the originary self. In certain moments, the abject reveals itself as an unvoluntary but compulsive repetition to return to one’s self. A combination of alterity and repetition, the abject is, in this sense, similar to Freud’s “uncanny” (unheimlich or unhomely). Freud’s study highlights the unhomely as the flip side of the homely. So in a moment released from the control of the superego, the ego experiences the return of the repressed, making the unfamiliar familiar and vice versa. This concept of abjection is useful in explaining medieval female mystics in three aspects: the abjection of food and body, of language, and of space. First, female mystics often ate feces, worms, scab or pus of the leper’s sore, as if they were sweet and exquisite food. They ate the unclean and horrible things, because the abject food was comparable to Christ’s blood on the cross, and their eating of the leper’s body could also be identified with eating the eucharistic body of Christ. Their offering of their own body to the poor as food may be compared to an imitatio Christi who gave his body to sinners. Here, the leper’s body, the female body, and Christ’s body are all synonymous. Second, a female mystic’s unintelligible utterance in ecstasy, like Christ’s moan on the cross, embodies the abjection of language, the fragmentation of signifier detached from signified. Defiling its orderly function of signification, the mystic’s “polluted” lips make ruptures in the official male language. The fragmented word joins the fractured body in the abject language. Third, the abjection offers a way to make homely the “unhomely” space between God and human soul. The restoration of imago dei in the human soul is, for female mystics, made possible only through their bodily affinity to, and intimacy with, Christ’s abject body.
Abstract
In Powers of Horror, Julia Kristeva advances the term, “abjection,” to denote the process of establishing one’s self by casting off what is unpalatable and seems alien to him/her. The abject—what is cast off—is, therefore, neither a subject, nor an object, because it is not yet a separate other, but still a part of the originary self. In certain moments, the abject reveals itself as an unvoluntary but compulsive repetition to return to one’s self. A combination of alterity and repetition, the abject is, in this sense, similar to Freud’s “uncanny” (unheimlich or unhomely). Freud’s study highlights the unhomely as the flip side of the homely. So in a moment released from the control of the superego, the ego experiences the return of the repressed, making the unfamiliar familiar and vice versa. This concept of abjection is useful in explaining medieval female mystics in three aspects: the abjection of food and body, of language, and of space. First, female mystics often ate feces, worms, scab or pus of the leper’s sore, as if they were sweet and exquisite food. They ate the unclean and horrible things, because the abject food was comparable to Christ’s blood on the cross, and their eating of the leper’s body could also be identified with eating the eucharistic body of Christ. Their offering of their own body to the poor as food may be compared to an imitatio Christi who gave his body to sinners. Here, the leper’s body, the female body, and Christ’s body are all synonymous. Second, a female mystic’s unintelligible utterance in ecstasy, like Christ’s moan on the cross, embodies the abjection of language, the fragmentation of signifier detached from signified. Defiling its orderly function of signification, the mystic’s “polluted” lips make ruptures in the official male language. The fragmented word joins the fractured body in the abject language. Third, the abjection offers a way to make homely the “unhomely” space between God and human soul. The restoration of imago dei in the human soul is, for female mystics, made possible only through their bodily affinity to, and intimacy with, Christ’s abject body.
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