Desire and Corporeality: The Material-Spiritual Synthesis of The Book of Margery Kempe and Pamphilia to Amphilanthus

Abstract

This essay positions desire as a catalyst for the fusion of the material and divine in The Book of Margery Kemp and Pamphilia to Amphilanthus. Drawing upon Catherine Bate’s definition of desire as a state of lack that energises and invigorates, the essay sees desire as an agent which develops literary and spiritual revelation beyond the religious and patriarchal confines subscribed to female devotion. Desire develops this revelatory state through synthesising the corporeal and spiritual binaries unique to each text: earthly love is spiritualised in Pamphilia to Amphilanthus and God take a uniquely human form The Book of Margery Kemp. Ultimately, desire as a catalysing agent subverts the structure of the masculine literary institutions that surrounds each text’s composition, enabling female spiritual experience and literary creation to be redefined on the fringe of the text’s respective literary canons.