Jane Austen and the Virgin Mary: Communicating the Ineffable

As an undergraduate, I was an English Specialist with a serious interest in Christianity. Deciding how to pursue these two areas of study at the graduate level was something that I had found really difficult. I could not see any connection between how lovers talk to each other in Jane Austen’s novels and Protestant perspectives on Marian apparitions. These two projects could not be made into one, nor could they be independently explored in the same Department.

I came to practical terms with this problem—I chose the Virgin Mary this year and will choose Jane Austen next—but the gap between these two subjects is one that I still think about a lot. I am sure that part of this stems from wanting to know what to study as a PhD student. How do I decide to pursue Religious Studies or English if I end up feeling the same about both? Two Masters make sense to me right now. Two PhDs do not. And so, I feel another part of me wanting to bridge this gap by understanding if there is any common ground to be had among the things that interest me. There doesn’t have to be. I get that. But “getting that” has not stopped me from continuing to wonder what the romantic discourse between pairs of nineteenth-century lovers has to do with Protestant opinions on appearances of the Virgin Mary.

I am far from establishing any kind of authoritative answer to this question. However, John Corrigan’s and Debora K. Shuger’s articles prove helpful. Each author’s discussion of emotion and the role(s) that “feeling” plays in the larger discourse of Religion resonate with me and make me think further (and more specifically) about what interests me with respect to religious experiences. In an indirect way, this thinking helps to shed light on what it is that I “tend” to find interesting and has taught me something about what kind of scholarship I would like to contribute.

In “Introduction: Emotions Research and the Academic Study of Religion,” John Corrigan indirectly (or is it directly?) grapples with what the religious studies student brings to the study of religion that others like, neurobiologists, psychologists and anthropologists either do not or cannot (Corrigan 5). An awareness of the “irreducible component of religion,” emotion, is what he seems to suggest (Corrigan 5). He says that this “essential” ingredient cannot be separated “into nonreligious artifacts” and I find the implications of this statement fascinating (Corrigan 5). Does Corrigan’s observation mean that emotion is intrinsically linked with religion, or that emotional experiences must be understood in terms of religious experiences and vice versa? Is religiosity an emotion? If emotion is irreducible, what kind of method or language invalidates scholarship written about emotion and religion?

It is this last question that particularly interests me and I have noticed it recurring in my blogs. I am concerned with the “language(s)” that the religious use to speak about profoundly emotive mystical experiences. Can we learn who created this language and whether or not it is useful? As Shuger notes in “The Philosophical Foundations of Sacred Rhetoric,” “Western thought” is stereotypically suspicious of the emotions because they are “subrational” and stand in direct opposition to the “dispassionate, objective inquiry” that pursues Truth and Goodness alone (Shuger 117). Does the language of religious people confirm or challenge the legitimacy of this stereotype? Shuger’s demonstration of how the heart and intellect are involved in religious experience clearly articulates the need for a language that speaks to and of both aspects of humanity (Shuger 119). “Sacred rhetoric,” under this argument, seems incredibly relevant and valid…but to who? To both insiders and outsiders? Or to just one of these groups?

Attempting to ascertain the usefulness of the language(s) used by religious people gives birth to many more questions. For example, who are the religious trying to communicate their religious experiences to with this language: insiders, outsiders or both? What do outsiders require linguistically in order for religious experiences to be intelligible? What do insiders require? As already discussed, Shuger maintains that insiders pursue Truth affectively and suggests that this approach must be considered alongside Reason (Shuger 119, 121). Are these two approaches absolutely opposed? How, if at all, does the “religious knowing” that Corrigan mentions in passing relate to this particular question (Corrigan 15)? What does it mean to know something via religion and how is this to be communicated to the outsider so that the language is communicative?

Corrigan suggests that psychobiology can be of use in this endeavour as “it is becoming clear how much of our basic mental and experiential equipment is genetically given and neurologically based” (Corrigan 10). I find this argument encouraging and motivating. Its attempt to integrate human spirituality and physiology implies a language that seeks to responsibly articulate the complexity and interconnectedness of human existence. Emotions and Reason are simultaneously upheld. But how does a person ensure that one does not overwhelm the other? How does an individual avoid both a return to the “old doctrines of biological determinism” and ambiguous, non-communicative “spiritual” jargon (Corrigan 10)? Perhaps more importantly, is this perceived discomfort between science and religion in fact a misunderstanding that can be “fixed” by developing a “common language”? Or is the disconnect one that cannot be bridged simply by speaking the same language? Is it possible, for instance, that religious experiences are inherently ineffable, as William James suggests, and therefore not simply waiting for a language that can account for their complexity?

I have definitely not come to any conclusions about these issues. I can say though, that I am interested in the ways in which people develop a “language” that enables them to intelligibly communicate experiences that they find profoundly difficult to articulate...experiences that range from Mr. Darcy’s love for Elizabeth to Bernadette’s being visited by the Virgin Mary.