Associate Professor of Literature Stephanie Bahr recently presented a paper titled “Gendering the Literal Sense in Reformation Hermeneutics” in Boston at the joint session of the Shakespeare Association of America (SAA) and the Renaissance Society of America (RSA). Her talk was part of a pair of panels on “Literalism and Literature.”
Bahr said that “Reformation Christians inherited a profound tradition associating divine text and divine body, one founded on scripture: ‘In the beginning was the Word ... and the Word was God ... And the Word was made flesh’ (John 1:1-14). Yet they likewise inherited a longstanding hermeneutic tradition depicting texts as female – passive, receptive, interpreted and inscribed by men – and denigrating the ‘letter’ or ‘literal’ as the carnal, feminine sense.
“This gendered hermeneutic tradition presented a keen rhetorical challenge for 16th century [textual interpreters] eager to elevate the literal sense,” she said, noting that her paper begins to fill a gap in the interpretation of these gender dynamics.
Bahr argued that “various early Tudor writers … strategically adapted, reimagined, and even weaponized traditional hermeneutic gendering to serve their cause and that these innovations informed Reformation poetics in turn.”
