Teresa of Avila and the Politics of Sanctity by Gillian T. W. Ahlgren (review)

338book reviews of teaching method—chiefly what not to do—was pungent (p. 92).The other most significant and influential texts offered here, "Lauingen School" and the "Classical Letters," fiU out and develop the ideas Sturm had worked out in "Correct Opening."The translation of the "Classical Letters" profits from Jean Rott's magisterial edition and French translation; Spitz andTinsley send their readers to Rott's apparatus. In the "Classical Letters" Sturm offers concrete advice to his teachers, carefuUy outlining curricular goals in the context of the overaU structure of the curriculum, making suggestions about suitable teaching techniques, and sorting through the appropriate works for students to be studying. In some cases, however, these translations are a work stiU in progress. The very first text,"Advice onWhat Organization to Give to the Gymnasium in Strasbourg ," contains some English sentences that require very careful reading Uanything is to be gleaned from them. "Even though bringing sheep together is useful, it is almost necessary for men to compare themselves to the multitude and variety from which first, imitation is stimulated, and next, pleasure derived. For by that which many or aU praise, and by which men customarUy catch fire is the tedium of diverse studies removed." Such lapses, unfortunately, occur throughout the translations. The authors offer introductory essays on Johann Sturm himseU, on his "method of humanistic pedagogy," and a bibliographic essay at the end.There are some significant inconsistencies between them: on page 15, Sturm's "Classical Letters" elicit the judgment,"What a horror he must have been," but on page 360,"they are models of charm, tact, and good wiU." Sturm's method does not in fact emerge clearly from the introductory essay.This reviewer would have appreciated serious attention to the relation between Sturm's reforms and the major efforts made by Bucer and many others in catechetics. In sum, this book needed keen editing that it did not receive. Even so, the texts remain a useful introduction to the dominant pedagogy of the Northern Renaissance. William S. Stafford Virginia Theological Seminary Teresa ofAvila and the Politics ofSanctity. By GUUanT.W.Ahlgren. (Ithaca, New York: CorneU University Press. 1996. Pp. xi, 188. $2995.) The last twenty years have witnessed an explosion of scholarship onTeresa ofAvUa.Works byTeófanes Egido,Tomás Alvarez, Rosa Rossi,J.Mary Luti,Alison Weber, Dominque de Courcelles, and Carole Slade, just to mention a few, have taken Teresian studies weU beyond the confines of uncritical hagiography and examined this fascinating writer, monastic reformer, mystic, and woman within the context of her times. In Teresa ofAvila and the Politics ofSanctity GilUan Ahlgren grapples with many of these same questions, trying to "situate book reviews339 [Teresa's] works in their theological and ecclesiastical miUeu" (p. 1) and to understand her Ufe and sanctity within "the Counter-Reformation agenda" (p. 3). In chapter 1 Ahlgren describes the weU-known history of repression of heterodoxy , censorship, and seU-censorship in sixteenth-century Spain, emphasizing the backlash against the Alumbrados, or "Enlightened Ones." She notes the paradox ofa society that witnessed the "proUferation ofmystical Uterature in an age that was not hospitable to it" (p. 8). Chapter 2 examines how Teresa developed certain "textual survival strategies " (p. 66) when confronted with inquisitorial suspicion. Ahlgren provides English translations of excerpts from Teresa's beatification and canonization proceedings and other documents, making them accessible to non-speciaUsts. She continues Ui the next two chapters, attempting to show howTeresa"forge[d] a new definition of reUgious authority for women" (p. 68) and mounted a spirited "defense of women's right to mental prayer and spiritual authority" and of her "teachings on visions and mystical union" (p. 85). In Chapter 5 Ahlgren offers a sustained analysis of the debates between male critics and supporters ofTeresa occasioned by the pubUcation of her works in 1588, six years after her death.Again, non-hispanists wiU appreciate the translation of materials published by Enrique Llamas in 1972 and used frequentiy by speciaUsts. In her final chapter and conclusion Ahlgren looks at some of the ways in whichTeresa was constructed as a saint, and attempts to demonstrate"how narrow the parameters for women's sanctity were" (p...