Peevish Weariness, aposiopesis, and the Irresolute Conscience
Peevish Weariness, aposiopesis, and the Irresolute Conscience
This chapter studies the frequent use of images of dust or fragments as an attack on the foundation of judicious dialogue, mutual engagement. An effective response to enforced attention is flabby uninterest. Poems break up those selves which should be focused on God. Both the image of distraction and its rhetorical formulation, aposiopesis (breaking off of speech), demonstrate that being lectured at results in a conscience which turns a deaf ear. This is neither acedia (torpor in devotion) nor melancholy, but boredom at an all-too-present divine. Although the fallen conscience acknowledges it goes to bits if not pulled together by God, it is irritated at the requirement to attend to him — even despite the numerous professional aids to listening the period boasts. Accordingly, a very aetiolated desire to hear God's words comes out repeatedly in a fretful comedy of weariness.
Keywords: boredom, acedia, melancholy, dust, deaf, listening, fragments
Oxford Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .
