The Craft of Thought: Meditation, Rhetoric, and the Making of Images, 400-1200 (review)
Georgia Frank
Reviewed by: The Craft of Thought: Meditation, Rhetoric, and the Making Images, 400–1200 Georgia Frank Mary Carruthers, 400–1200. Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature, 34. Cambridge: University Press, 1998. Pp. xvii + 399. $59.95. “People do not ‘have’ ideas, they ‘make’ them,” Carruthers writes Thought, a stimulating exploration memory, imagery, invention monastic prayer. More so than Book Memory (1990), her groundbreaking work on classical medieval arts explores inventive side memory. Specifically, she examines how monks devised mnemonic “tools” “machines mind” with which to craft their thoughts about God. Closer community chest personal stash, memory furnished meditation shared metaphors, clever associations, tropes, images. This constructional conception emerges from Carruthers’s perceptive reading patristic authors, including Prudentius, Augustine, John Cassian, Boethius, Gregory Great. [End Page 625] is psychologizing work, probing monks’ emotions or beliefs, nor does it say much rote memorization reconstructing past. Instead, adopts rhetorical approach guidelines, focusing ornaments, images that shaped Scripture, large part, schemes places “see,” craft, map out thoughts. For instance, Apostle Paul’s notion skilled master builder (1Cor 3:10–15), initially metaphor for church leadership, became an organizing principle composition. Memoria was profoundly locational, point underscores rich illustrative examples imagined paths, roads, gardens, buildings meditation. Ironically, locational also relied calculated forgetting, form displacement rather erasure. expertly demonstrates symbiosis between recollection forgetting analyses Chrysostom’s efforts reclaim pagan holy site Daphne martyr Babylas, Cassian prayer, poetics pilgrims’ diaries. Images were “good think with.” Augustine’s “mnemotechnical walk” through locus tabernaculi Ps 41 typifies this type anagogical visualization. In addition mental images, considers later periods architectural plans, liturgical processions, architecture could serve as meditative maps. I leave those greater expertise judge Carruther’s treatment Carolingian twelfth-century writers. Within matrix several late antique concerns—whether doctrinal, devotional, polemical—take new meanings. claim image’s cognitive utility took priority over any “mimetic realism” carries profound implications further early Christian attitudes Clear translations primary sources make writing accessible advanced undergraduates. Graduate students well scholars will benefit outstanding book, deepens our understanding power word image history art, exegesis, pedagogy, monasticism. With ample illustrations superb bibliography, Thought rewarding engrossing read. Colgate Copyright © 1999 Johns Hopkins Press
Journal of Early Christian Studies