The Art of Mystical Narrative
November 22, 2018 DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199948635.001.0001 via Semantic Scholar
Summary
This book examines the Zohar as a literary work, presenting a poetics of its narrative and a morphology of mystical storytelling. Topics include mysticism and literature, fiction and pseudepigraphy, diaspora and exile, dramatic monologue, emotion, voice and gesture, the quest for wisdom, recognition, encounters with nature, the relationship between narrative and exegesis, magical realism, narrative ethics, and the Zohar's frame-tale in the context of medieval Iberian literature.
Study at a glance
| Design | theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Key finding | The Zohar can be understood as a literary achievement through analysis of its narrative poetics and storytelling morphology. |
Abstract
This book studies the Zohar as a work of literature. While the Zohar has long been recognized as a signal achievement of mystical theology, myth, and exegesis, this monograph presents a poetics of zoharic narrative, a morphology of mystical storytelling. Topics examined include mysticism and literature; fiction and pseudepigraphy; diaspora and exile; dramatic monologue and the representation of emotion; voice, gesture, and the theatrics of the zoharic tale; the wandering quest for wisdom; anagnorisis and the poetics of recognition; encounters with the natural world as stimuli for mystical creativity; the dynamic relationship between narrative and exegesis; magical realism and the fantastic in the representation of experience and Being; narrative ethics and the exemplum of virtuous piety in the Zohar; the place of the zoharic frame-tale in the comparative context of medieval Iberian literature, both Jewish and non-Jewish.