The Conversion of Herman the Jew is popular PDF and ePub book, written by Jean-Claude Schmitt in 2013-04-22, it is a fantastic choice for those who relish reading online the Biography & Autobiography genre. Let's immerse ourselves in this engaging Biography & Autobiography book by exploring the summary and details provided below. Remember, The Conversion of Herman the Jew can be Read Online from any device for your convenience.
The Conversion of Herman the Jew Book PDF Summary
Sometime toward the middle of the twelfth century, it is supposed, an otherwise obscure figure, born a Jew in Cologne and later ordained as a priest in Cappenberg in Westphalia, wrote a Latin account of his conversion to Christianity. Known as the Opusculum, this book purportedly by "Herman, the former Jew" may well be the first autobiography to be written in the West after the Confessions of Saint Augustine. It may also be something else entirely. In The Conversion of Herman the Jew the eminent French historian Jean-Claude Schmitt examines this singular text and the ways in which it has divided its readers. Where some have seen it as an authentic conversion narrative, others have asked whether it is not a complete fabrication forged by Christian clerics. For Schmitt the question is poorly posed. The work is at once true and fictional, and the search for its lone author—whether converted Jew or not—fruitless. Herman may well have existed and contributed to the writing of his life, but the Opusculum is a collective work, perhaps framed to meet a specific institutional agenda. With agility and erudition, Schmitt examines the text to explore its meaning within the society and culture of its period and its participation in both a Christian and Jewish imaginary. What can it tell us about autobiography and subjectivity, about the function of dreams and the legitimacy of religious images, about individual and collective conversion, and about names and identities? In The Conversion of Herman the Jew Schmitt masterfully seizes upon the debates surrounding the Opusculum (the text of which is newly translated for this volume) to ponder more fundamentally the ways in which historians think and write.
Detail Book of The Conversion of Herman the Jew PDF
- Author : Jean-Claude Schmitt
- Release : 22 April 2013
- Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
- ISBN : 9780812208757
- Genre : Biography & Autobiography
- Total Page : 318 pages
- Language : English
- PDF File Size : 12,5 Mb
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