Gerard Manley Hopkins Research Papers (original) (raw)

Incomprehensible Certainty presents a sustained reflection on the nature
of images and the phenomenology of visual experience. Taking the
“image” (eikōn) as the essential medium of art and literature and as
foundational for the intuitive ways in which we make contact with our
“lifeworld,” Thomas Pfau draws in equal measure on Platonic metaphysics
and modern phenomenology to advance a series of interlocking claims.
First, Pfau shows that, beginning with Plato’s later dialogues, being and
appearance came to be understood as ontologically distinct from (but no
longer opposed to) one another. Second, in contrast to the idol that is
typically gazed at and visually consumed as an object of desire, this study
positions the image (eikōn) as a medium whose intrinsic abundance and
excess reveal to us its metaphysical function, namely, as the visible
analogue of an invisible, numinous reality. Finally, the interpretations
unfolded in this book (from Plato, Plotinus, Pseudo-Dionysius, John
Damascene via Bernard of Clairvaux, Bonaventure, Julian of Norwich, and
Nicholas of Cusa to modern writers and artists such as Goethe, Ruskin,
Turner, Hopkins, C zanne, and Rilke) affirm the essential
complementarity of image and word, visual intuition and hermeneutic
practice, in theology, philosophy, and literature. Like Pfau’s previous
book, Minding the Modern, Incomprehensible Certainty is a major work.
With over fifty illustrations, the book will interest students and scholars of
philosophy, theology, literature, and art history.