1. Theorizing Richard Rolle's Sound Art.
- Author
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Albin, Andrew
- Subjects
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SOUND art , *HERMITS , *MYSTICISM , *RELIGIOUS literature - Abstract
Richard Rolle constructed a life, and a life's work, in and with sound. Earlier studies have noted the aural quality of the hermit's oeuvre, commonly assessing the melody of his mystical transport and the sonic patter of his texts as indexical vehicles for loftier spiritual truths. This essay seeks to do something different with Rollean sound: to shift the modality of our reading toward a radically open ear so we can listen to Rolle's writings without translating their sonority otherwise. By following Rolle's lead and repositioning literary experience away from signifying language toward the sounds through which language signifies, we come to appreciate Rolle as a sophisticated sense-maker whose mystical output invites us to theorize a medieval sound art. Adapting elements of Salomé Voegelin's philosophy of sound art, this essay reconsiders one of the best-known Rollean episodes, the narration of his first audition of canor in Incendium amoris , and offers a reading of one of the least-studied Rollean texts, the alliterative prose-poem Gastly Gladnes. Encountering these texts through a practice of close listening allows us to notice how Rolle's spiritual sensorium, lived practices, and texts cooperatively generate "sonic possible worlds," spaces of futural sonic becoming that make bold claims to the nature of the true. Attended to with care, Rolle's sound art spurs a radical reimagining of the aesthetic ambit and devotional invention of the late Middle Ages, even as it renovates our assessment of Rolle's textual output and challenges the intellectual norms of literary scholarship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
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