Consolation as Graced Encounters with Ignatius of Loyola and Hélène Cixous
Abstract
This article suggests that the sixteenth-century Basque saint
Ignatius of Loyola and the French thinker Hélène Cixous experienced
consolation in unexpected encounters with texts. For
Ignatius, consolation came as a result of reading while recovering
from a battle wound in 1521 the only texts available to him,
of lives of the saints and Christ. For Cixous, it was the consoling
birth of her writing life after the death of her father in 1948
and 30 years later a chance reading of the Brazilian novelist
Clarice Lispector. These encounters serve here as a point of
departure into a beginning exploration of reading and writing
as consolation in the work and life of these two disparate yet
essentially compatible figures. Taking a cue from Cixous’s
reading and writing practices, personal criticism is used in the
reading of their texts so that the writing of this essay may
itself perform an act of consoling.
Publisher
LIR. journal
Collections
View/ Open
Date
2015Author
Reek, Jennifer
Keywords
Ignatius of Loyola
Hélène Cixous
textual consolation
personal criticism
death and mourning
Publication type
article, peer reviewed scientific
Language
eng