<p> Falling in love, for many individuals, begins with an inescapable, uncontrollable, transformative experience of intense emotions and intrusive thoughts; one phenomenon from the literature is the extreme love experience, limerence. Romantic love researchers have tended to lump extreme love phenomena into the limerence model viewed as pathology. Transpersonal psychology was chosen as the lens to examine an extreme occurrence of falling in love for its positive, transformational, and spiritual potential using a phenomenological approach. There were 25 U.S. born participants, age 30 and older, recruited from the internet who reported experiencing a very intense and very significant romantic love occurrence. Data from semi-structured interviews were thematically analyzed for emergent information, and then the data were compared to potential explanatory models including limerence, spiritual emergency, biopsychosocial, and passionate romantic love. The results revealed a unique experience unlike limerence and with limited correlations to the biopsychosocial model. The new phenomenon is called amigeist, characterized by immediate, intense soul-mate bonding, such as secure attachment with lifepartner potential. The larger themes were dynamic connection, intense emotions, astonishment, new behaviors, and passionate long-term relationships.</p>

This thesis examines the language of pain/suffering in Ancrene Wisse, the Wooing Group, and the Katherine Group, arguing that the anchoress nourishes an acute but discriminating sensitivity to pain. It seeks to demonstrate that the anchoress uses these early Middle English texts to cultivate sophisticated affective stirrings. Chapter 1 foregrounds the multidimensional penitence in Ancrene Wisse, situated in the context of Latin and vernacular penitential and homiletic material. The anchoress’ penitential processes demand not only physical pain, but also affective pain and intensive cognitive processes of self-examination. Chapter 2 argues that the Wooing Group meditations are tools of pain-cultivation, which the anchoress uses to nurture her affective pain as she develops her intimacy with the Spousal Lamb and his Mother. Chapter 3 assesses imagery of physical and affective woundedness. This chapter examines the anchoress’ use of imagery of Christ’s wounds, sin-wounds, and penitential wounding in Ancrene Wisse and the Wooing Group, and then studies her use of the saints’ wounding in the Katherine Group. Chapter 4 contends that spectatorship and performance of suffering are not separable acts for the anchoress. The chapter assesses: the anchoress’ spectatorship in the Katherine Group hagiographies, a spectatorship based on defamiliarization; the anchoress’ participation with the pain of Christ in Ancrene Wisse and the Wooing Group, including an examination of her potential use of church wall paintings; and the female reader of Hali Meiðhad, who immerses herself in the suffering of a married and child-bearing woman. Chapter 5 examines the crucial affective phenomenon of compassion, arguing that compassion in Ancrene Wisse and the Wooing Group is not a distanced ‘pity’, but a complex ‘co-feeling’ (using Milan Kundera’s (1984) term). The thesis concludes by underscoring the fact that the anchoress’ painful existence is not pathological; it is an existence characterized by agency and emancipation.

La présente recherche tente de se centrer sur le septième centenaire de la mort de saint François d’Assise (1226- 1926). Elle étudie trois auteurs ayant rendu hommage au saint : Michel de Ghelderode (1898-1962) avec les Images de la vie de saint François d’Assise, Henri Ghéon (1875-1944) avec La Vie profonde de saint François d’Assise, et Déodat de Basly (1863-1937) avec La Christiade française. À travers des approches hagiographique, poétique, et théologique, l’étude envisage de se plonger dans une large perspective de représentions littéraires du saint, afin de retracer un paysage littéraire qui se focalise sur l’époque choisie. / The present research attempts to focus on the seventh centenary of the death of St. Francis of Assisi (1226- 1926). This work will study three authors who had paid homage to the saint: Michel de Ghelderode (1898- 1962) with Images de la vie de saint François d’Assise, Henri Gheon (1875-1944) with La Vie profonde de saint François d’Assise, and Déodat de Basly (1863-1937) with La Christiade française. Under hagiographic, poetic, and theological approaches, this work intends to dip into a broad perspective of literary representations of St. Francis, in order to trace a literary landscape that focuses on the chosen era.