Talk:Margery Kempe

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Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 03:21, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Untitled
My recollection of reading about Margery Kempe (sorry, I don't have time to do the homework and find the citations) is that she was regarded as a fraud and a buffoon by many of her contemporaries. She was thought to be the type of bogus mystic excoriated by the author of "The Cloud of Unknowing". These views should be emphasized in her entry. Why is there so much about her in Wiki and so little about Julian of Norwich, who was the genuine article? Xxanthippe 07:10, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I think it is very narrow minded to attempt to pit Margery Kempe against Julian of Norich. Although it is true to say that many believed Margery to be a fraud in her own time it must also be noted that we are aware of this because Margery chose to discuss it in her book. If you are unsatisfied with the entry on Julian of Norich then I suggest you improve it yourself. Lisa.padden 12:07, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

There has been interest in Margery Kempe, including that of psychiatrists who debate what she was suffering from - postpartum psychosis now seems more likely than, as many of her contemporaries believed she had, epilepsy. ACEOREVIVED 21:36, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Kempe and Orthodoxy
The third paragraph under 'Kempe's significance' contains factual errors and outright conjecture. It simply isn't true that Margery "came dangerously close to heterodoxy in her challenging responses to clerical authorities." She came dangerously close to being mistaken for a Lollard; and the Book, especially ch. 48, makes clear that Margery wasn't a Lollard. The sentence "Had Kempe's book been fully extant prior to the Reformation, it would likely have been destroyed. The fact that it was lost until 1934 is undoubtedly the only reason it is available to us today" is, in the first place, false, as the text did exist, but just wasn't circulated, and in the second place is a meaningless statement, since we can only guess what would've happened had the book been circulated. So, I'm deleting the rest of that paragraph after "She proved her orthodoxy in each case." Jroberts548 (talk) 05:32, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Recent edits
I just reverted several edits, though I have no doubt they were made in good faith. But in some cases they repeated things already in the entry, in others they used evaluative language that is not appropriate in an encyclopedia, and in others they were not smoothly written. Sorry if this seems heavy-handed, but the article seems more solid as it was. — scribbling  woman  21:48, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

We are a group of college students who are planning on editing this page for an English Literature project that we have been assigned. If anyone has any questions about our project feel free to contact this username: Dana_Stuono  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dana Stuono (talk • contribs) 19:32, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Removed one of the external links as it was to the web page of a pornographic writer with a similar name. 75.191.151.75 (talk) 12:55, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Saints banner and category
Based on this individual being included in the Calendar of saints (Church of England), I am adding the Category:Anglican saints and the Saints WikiProject banner to this article. I am awaiting reliable sources which can be used to add the content to the article. John Carter 17:11, 29 June 2007 (UTC) Please note Margery Kempe remembered on November 9th in the ANGLICAN  CHURCH is not an Anglican Saint(despite her wishes to be so!) Also (apropos MKempe) Psychiatric concepts are always descriptions of something! not explanations of anything! psychological or otherwise- and very much disputed by many practitioners To use them as if they mean something- is a misuse of language and a misunderstanding of how language functions (Wittgenstein) Thank you  --ROSMAY (talk) 16:58, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

Dubious request for a photograph
Has something been lost of me which is obvious to others, but why the requests for a photograph for an article on a women who lived several centuries before the invention of the camera? ACEOREVIVED 21:38, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Reference to Freeman, Bogard and Skolomskas' paper
In view of what I typed above, I shall now say a little more. In her own lifetime, the Englishwoman Margery Kempe was seen as a sufferer of epilepsy, and more recent scholarship has portayed her as a sufferer of post-partum psychosis; however, such views are criticsed by Freeman, Bogard and Skolomskas, who claim that it is more likely that she was suffering from manic-depressive psychosis.

Reference: Freeman, P.R., Bogard, C.D. & Skolomskas, D.E. (1990). Margery Kempe - a new theory: The inadeduacy of hysteria and post-partum psychosis as diagnostic categories. History of Psychiatry, Volume 1, pp169-190

This article is improved out of all recognition since I last grumbled about it. "In 1438, the year her book is known to have been completed, a Margeria Kempe, who may have been Margery Kempe, was admitted to the Trinity Guild of Lynn." What do we know about the nature of the Trinity Guild of Lynn? This might give some insight into her ability to operate in a social environment. Xxanthippe (talk) 05:17, 26 March 2010 (UTC).
 * Update. There is a lot more interesting information in the article now (congratulations to the students) but the structure of the article has become rambling and disjointed. A restructure of the article is probably too ambitious for a student assignment. A professional scholar is needed. Incidentally, I was fascinated by the suggestion that the story of her travels was fiction. Is there any independent evidence that she actually undertook the travels that she said she undertook? Xxanthippe (talk) 00:13, 28 October 2013 (UTC).

Adding reference to "Affective Piety"
Hi! I am a "professional scholar" a medievalist who works in this field. I'll take a look at the article if people want me to help. But I would like to add a mention of Affective Piety and add a link to a new page on that topic. Let me know if that's OK! MAE (talk) 17:08, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Terry Jones' interpretation
Worth catching one of his rarer TV programmes, RIP. But his reading of her was rather literalist (odd for an Oxford English graduate, or was he being satirical, and if so, why?) - as you say, she was a mystic. Fuficius Fango (talk) 09:30, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Student editing
This BIO is scheduled to be used for student editing in 2021. I hope they will not make as much a mess of the article as they did on an earlier occasion. Remember that Wikipedia is a collaborative project that operates under consensus and unsatisfactory edits may be reverted by other editors. I hope that the course leader will exercise diligence in seeing that edits satisfy Wikipedia standards. Any shortcomings may reflect upon the course leader and their institution. Xxanthippe (talk) 03:35, 29 September 2021 (UTC).


 * Perhaps a more encouraging reception of new editors in future may reflect more positively upon the Wikipedian community, per [|Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers] --Georgery Kempe (talk) 12:11, 8 January 2023 (UTC)