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"Of
pam him aweaxeð wynsum gefea": The Voyeuristic Appeal of Christ III
by Timothy
D. Arner, Penn State University, Paul D. Stegner, California
Polytechnic, San Luis Obispo
Durum est enim dicere, quod sancti talia corpora tunc habebunt, ut
non
possint oculos claudere atque aperire cum volent.
For it is hard to say that the saints shall then have such bodies that
they shall
not be able to shut and open their eyes as they please.
—St. Augustine, De civitate Dei 22.29
Christ III's representation of the rewards offered to the blessed
in Heaven raises this question: Why would anyone offered the opportunity
to enjoy the beatific vision turn his gaze toward the suffering of the
damned in Hell? The poem's emphasis on vision has conventionally been
interpreted as indicating its didactic purpose of effecting repentance
in the reader. Critics such as Frederick Biggs, Thomas D. Hill, and, most
recently, Sachi Shimomura have connected the poem to standard theological
interpretations of the Last Judgment and the penitential tradition. However,
the unique, and perhaps troubling, issue of how and why the blessed choose
to direct their gaze remains an interpretive problem. In this essay, we
argue that Christ III's representation of the blessed gazing
upon the damned forwards its penitential aims by offering the gaze as
voyeuristic pleasure and promising the reader that such pleasure, experienced
through reading, will continue in heaven. The poet emphasizes scopophilic
pleasure as part of a rhetorical strategy that makes the conception of
heavenly bliss immediately available to readers of the poem.
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