The Cloud of Unknowing is in a very real sense a treatise on epistemology, and on the practical aspect of the communication which we call rhetoric. The Cloud draws upon the Platonic rhetorical tradition, which asserts that grasp of abstract truth gives value to human understanding and communication. Reality is above all transcendent, as mirrored in the kataphatic mystical tradition to which the Cloud belongs. The problem is that, if this "vertical" mode of knowing be set against the "horizontal" mode of knowing which in literary theory is generally labelled "metaphor", the existence of metaphoric approaches to reality in the Christian faith (which the Cloud author professes) seems inconsistent with the mystical tradition and Platonic rhetoric. However, a reconciliation of vertical and horizontal modes of knowing--of metonymy and metaphor--is effected, in theological terms, by an Incarnational dynamic involving creation and grace, and, in critical terms, by paradox and analogy.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.60614 |
| Date | January 1991 |
| Creators | Burgess, Andrew |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Arts (Department of English.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001258323, proquestno: AAIMM72228, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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