Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Degree

Master of Arts

Program

Theory and Criticism

Supervisor

Professor Antonio Calcagno

Abstract

The following feeling is what inspired this thesis and what this thesis aims to outline: the human heart is a knot, formed by a string, tying a human being to the divine. Simone Weil’s notion of affliction will broach the topic of the heart-knotting feeling. In the first chapter of the thesis, five qualities of affliction will be identified. In the second chapter, we will make a connection between Weilian affliction and the heart, understood by Dietrich von Hildebrand as an organ of affectivity and by the author as a transcendent souvenir. In the third chapter, we will discuss Christian biblical accounts of circumcision and circumcision of the heart. With the building blocks laid down, we will finally speak of the heart-knotting feeling in chapter four, more specifically, the formation and resolution of the heart-knotting feeling.

file.jpeg (730 kB)

Share

COinS