cover image Julian of Norwich's Showings: From Vision to Book

Julian of Norwich's Showings: From Vision to Book

Denise B. Baker. Princeton University Press, $47.5 (215pp) ISBN 978-0-691-03631-1

In her detailed and densely written textual analysis of both the short and long forms of the mystic Julian of Norwich's Showings, Baker, a professor of English, sets out to prove that, between the visions themselves in A.D. 1373 and the construction of her long text 20 years later, Julian developed stylistically and theologically into a sophisticated writer and religionist. Baker's Julian sees a God tolerant of human sin and reincorporates sensuality into the Trinity through Christ as Mother. And finally, but not entirely convincingly, Baker discerns an elaborate rhetorical pattern in the long text that embodies the complexity of Julian's developed thought. Clearly a book for an academic audience, this still offers the general reader thoughtful insights into both the Showings and its milieu. (Dec.)