Julian of Norwich’s Showings: From Vision to Book by Denise Nowakowski Baker (review)

REVIEWS DENISE NOWAKOWSKI BAKER.Julian ofNorwich's Showings: From Vision to Book. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994. Pp. xi, 215. $29.95. Denise Baker's study is that kind of very useful and informative book in which the reading of an author is genuinely deepened and broadened by being related to contemporary traditions and patterns of thought and feel­ ing. As the subtitle From Vision to Book suggests, Baker's interpretation of the Showings finds its focus in the evidence for an accumulative, layered composition ofthe text, as Julian's book is changed and expanded to match her developing understanding of her original visions, her "maturation . . . from a visionary into a theologian." Even more valuable, however, for mod­ ern readers untutored in theology will be the interpretation ofJulian's text in the light of medieval theology, because this helps place what is boldly innovative in the thinking of this early and great woman writer in our language. Baker's first chapter seeks to locate within the tradition of affective spiri­ tuality Julian's prayer for the three gifts or graces: "mind of Christ's pas­ sion," physical illness, and a third request for the three metaphorical wounds ofcontrition, compassion and "wylfulle langgynge to God." These are interesting pages, making a case for the very origins ofthe book-and, behind that, of what Julian wished to see and "saw"-in meditative tradi­ tions. This is built upon in the second chapter ("From Visualization to Vision"), where Baker suggests that what is described in Julian's more figurative, corporeal showings represents an amalgam ofthat devotional art produced with such flair in late-medieval East Anglia. Having tried myself to make a case for this, I appreciate the scruple with which Baker deploys what remains somewhat uncooperative evidence. Her identification of ele­ ments of the fifth and sixth showings with the iconographical motif of the Throne of Grace does link vision and visual arts suggestively. There is also some acute literary criticism ofJulian's ways ofseeing: she reads her visions like a picture rather than a story, ignoring the other personages who tradi­ tionally clutter the picture, so as to focus on Christ's experience. This makes its own supporting case for a susceptibility to the visual arts, which Julian then uses on her own terms. The three following chapters locate within the context ofmedieval theo­ logical traditions Julian's "alle shalle be wele" theodicy, the "Lord and Servant" parable and her understanding oforiginal sin, and her chapters on the Motherhood of Jesus. Julian's notion of the "godly wille" that never 171 STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER assented to sin may be seen to challenge the notion of the depraved will, which is evidently crucial to the doctrine of original sin. Whereas ortho­ doxy looks back to the causes of evil in seeking to lay blame,Julian concen­ trates less on Adam's transgression than Christ's reparation, seeing personal sin as a playing out of the "fortunate fall" in the individual's life, with beneficial consequences quite exceeding the initial culpability. Unusually optimistic about the large number of the elect,Julian can hence see predes­ tination as a comfort more than a terror. Guided by a showing, Julian distinctively declines to attribute wrath to God, or a desire for retribution. Even more arrestingly,Julian declines to attribute disobedience to Adam, who is represented more as inadvertently separated from God than rebel­ ling against him, with sin ensuing from the separation rather than causing it. Her emphasis is on the promise of restoration, on mankind's legacy of weakness rather than on ancestral guilt. Baker's discussion of the theological context forJulian's understanding of the Motherhood of Jesus also provides a very readable synthesis and clarification. Theologians-while asserting the equality of men and women before God--constructed a gendered model of the essential self which denied that the part characterized as female (the lower reason) contained the image of God. As a consequence of the Fall the self is in any case a deformed image. For Augustine the higher reason is masculine, and therein he situates the imago Dei, whereas St. Bernard moves the imago Dei from...