REVELATIONS OF DIVINE LOVE: THE FEMALE IMAGE OF GOD IN THE WRITINGS OF JULIAN OF NORWICH

The writings of English anchoress Julian of Norwich, who lived between c. 1342 and c. 1416, are an interesting sample of medieval mystical literature. Her major work, Revelations of Divine Love (1373), presents her visions in two versions popularly known as Short Text and Long Text. Guided increasingly on personal experience, characteristic of her English contemporary mystics, as pointed out by Flores (2013), Norwich's literary work is the oldest female authorship writing in English. Her writings reveal that the author was a woman of the fourteenth century who owned a differential regarding to the current view of the concept of the Christian God. In this sense, this work aims to analyze the female image of God in her work as a differential mark, which does not fail to insert her into the medieval women mystical tradition, as her text is a deep theological reflection on her visions. Based on scholars as John-Julian (2009), Flores (2013), McNamer (1989), Long (1996), and Velasco (2009), about the mystical phenomenon, Lieve Troch (2013), about feminine mystique in the Middle Ages, and Le Goff (2010), we will seek to analyze the aspects that point to the construction of the female image of God in the work of Julian of Norwich.