Summary: The Book Of Margery Kempe

The Book of Margery Kempe is known to be the earliest autobiography written in English, though for many years, it was only known through a book of excerpts published during the sixteenth century. It wasn’t until 1934 that a copy of the original fifteenth century manuscript finally appeared. Aside from being one of the most important literary discoveries of the twentieth century, The Book is a remarkable addition to the body of English mystical writings that provides a close look on the performance of medieval life. In her autobiography The Book of Margery Kempe, Margery Kempe utilizes ritual, reenactment, and social drama as part of her performativity to gain acceptance from the Jesus Christ she envisions. Margery performs her devoutness to Jesus Christ in a highly public way where she is with a keen eye for the effects of her actions from her communitas as that is her audience where she …show more content…
Marie d’Oignies is one of the main mystical women that Margery emulates traditional mystical behavior from. It is noted that Marie would also have uncontrollable weeping and sobbing, “Wherefore for a long time after this visitation she could neither gaze at an image of the Cross, nor speak, nor hear other people speaking about the passion of Christ, without falling into ecstasy through a defect of the heart. Therefore she sometimes moderated her sorrow and restrained the flood of her tears…” (de Vitry 218). Margery performs a reenactment of these uncontrollable episodes where she cries and weeps most of the times that she is in contact with divine, whether it’s physically or spiritually. Specifically, in Chapter 60, Margery is in Norwich, and goes to the churchyard of Saint Stephen’s. Immediately after she enters the church, Margery starts crying and sobbing, much like Marie d’Oignies where even the gaze of an image could make her cry. As Kempe