Magnificence and the Sublime in Medieval Aesthetics: Art, Architecture, Literature, Music ed. by C. Stephen Jaeger (review)

This collection, which includes an introduction and eleven essays, developed from a 2008 conference on the medieval aesthetics of grandeur. It explores how and where concepts of the magnificent and sublime operated in the Middle Ages, and puts them into conversation with more widely known treatments by writers like Longinus, Immanuel Kant, and Theodor Adorno. In doing so, the volume challenges earlier assessments of the medieval sublime, particularly those by E.R. Curtius and Erich Auerbach, as well as an ‘overarching conception of medieval culture’ that C. Stephen Jaeger calls ‘the diminutive Middle Ages (DMA).’ Although the DMA may be a bit of a straw man—or at least may be a stronger paradigm in some disciplines than others—the contributors effectively undercut any idea that ‘the Middle Ages is a period of small, quaint things and people’ (p. 5).

The arrangement of the essays highlights their variety, but several clusters also emerge. Readers who are most interested in the ontological categories at stake might begin with Jaeger’s introduction and ‘Richard of St. Victor and the Medieval Sublime,’ which argues for defining the sublime through its effects rather than any specific qualities and takes Richard of St. Victor’s description of ‘ecstatic contemplative experience’ as the central case study (p. 163). In ‘How Magnificent Was Medieval Art?,’ Beth Williamson suggests that medieval and modern ideas of the magnificent and sublime have some general similarities but that medieval art encouraged the reader to connect with God rather than to remain disinterested, as required by the Kantian sublime.

Architecture and art lend themselves perhaps most naturally to considerations of grandeur, and several essays explore those connections from different angles. Areli Marina’s ‘Magnificent Architecture in Late Medieval Italy’ examines both buildings and texts to demonstrate that ‘the sophisticated visual architectural language of magnificence was well-defined and clearly understood’ much earlier than previously recognized (p. 194). In ‘Reflections on the “Wonderful Height and Size” of Gothic Great Churches and the Medieval Sublime,’ Paul Binski considers how structures might inspire wonder at their colossal size or complex variety. Adam S. Cohen’s ‘Magnificence in Miniature: The Case of Early Medieval Manuscripts’ persuasively demonstrates that books, despite their smaller size, could evoke similar responses; they depicted their patrons as magnificent in addition to functioning as magnificent objects in their own right.

Whereas Cohen approaches manuscripts from a visual culture perspective, other writers focus on textual representations of the magnificent and sublime. Martino Rossi Monti’s ‘“Opus es magnificum”: The Image of God and the Aesthetics of Grace’ shows how philosophers and theologians constructed grace as ‘something sublime and grandiose’ (p. 28). Danuta Shanzer considers the problems posed by biblical style’s apparent lack of magnificence in ‘“Incessu humilem, successu excelsam”: Augustine, Sermo humilis, and Scriptural ὕψος.’ In ‘“Error Left Me and Fear Came in Its Place”: The Arrested Sublime of the Giants in Divine Comedy, Canto XXXI,’ Eleanora Stoppino confirms that the sublime was a literary as well as a theological concern; she recognizes ‘disoriented perception’ as ‘a key element for the analysis of the gigantic Sublime’ in Dante p. (181).

Proving that the sublime and magnificent were not restricted to what one could see or read, a subset of essays explores how sound also participated in those discourses. Christopher Page studies the writings of and about liturgical singer Mamertus Claudianus in ‘The Magnificence of a Singer in Fifth-Century Gaul.’ Margot E. Fassler’s ‘Helgaud of Fleury and the Liturgical Arts: The Magnification of Robert the Pious’ reflects on ‘the ways that music and musicians helped to make events and persons—both living and dead—worthy of praise’ (p. 103). Emma Dillon’s marvelous essay, ‘Listening to Magnificence in Medieval Paris,’ contends that civic sound, with its unpredictable, unruly, and ephemeral nature, ‘connot[es] the magnificence’ of that city (p. 216). The strengths of this...