'Holy and pleasing to God': a narratological approach to hagiography in Jerome's 'Lives' of Paul and Malchus

Gray, C. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0293-4301 (2017) 'Holy and pleasing to God': a narratological approach to hagiography in Jerome's 'Lives' of Paul and Malchus. Ancient Narrative, 14. pp. 103-128. ISSN 1568-3540 (ISBN: 9789492444172)

Abstract/Summary

This article analyses the narratorial attitudes of Jerome’s fictional Lives of Paul ‘the first hermit’ and Malchus ‘the captive monk’. These works are among the first Latin examples of Christian monastic biography, or ‘hagiography’. Using the narratological categories of distance (mimetic versus diegetic) and focalisation, the article seeks to determine to what extent these texts exhibit the biased and uncritical presentation which current usage considers to be typical of hagiographical discourse. Close readings of selected passages suggest that Jerome’s narrators are flexible in their attitudes and do not impose a single, ideologically consistent, interpretation of the events narrated.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/69961
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Arts, Humanities and Social Science > Graduate Centre for Medieval Studies (GCMS) Arts, Humanities and Social Science > Language Text and Power
Uncontrolled Keywords	Jerome of Stridon; The Life of Paul the First Hermit; The Captive Monk; Hagiography; Narratorial Evaluation; Mimetic and Diegetic Discourse; Focalisation.
Publisher	Barkhuis
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