A Resounding God: Acoustic Representations of the Divine in Early Modern Women's Spiritual Writing

The central role of religion in forging early modern identities has been widely recognized as a space for dispute, politics, knowledge or control. For women in particular it could also mean self-expression, edification and solace. Both in Reformed and non-Reformed communities, spiritual women living as members of a religious order, mystics, believers, followers of sectarian groups, wives and mothers sought to explore their faith in writing to uphold religious values in their families, communities and countries. Whether these values were expressed though mystical rapture, prophetic speech, devotional poetry, spiritual letters or instruction, scholars have pointed out the inward, silent or otherwise boisterous character of these literary manifestations of spiritual experience. By establishing a mental rapport with God, the double-voice that conflates individual will with the divine mandate configures the dialogical space in which wisdom is imparted.

However, an underrepresented feature in our understanding of early modern women’s pious writing is the proliferation of sounds that define divinity. Beyond sacred music, seraphic choirs, heavenly tunes, or God’s wrath, the presence and quality of the Almighty crowds the mental and sensorial grasp of the spirit. God is, above all, sound: Elizabeth Glover could distinguish the voice of God that “diferred from all others” and became “a perpetual law in her soul”, whereas Anne Wentworth heard the “lamentations of a full city” before God could speak to her in a stentorian voice. Arcangela Tarabotti shouted to God when she questioned theological precepts concerning the “scientific operations of the intellect in women”, whereas Mary of Ágreda’s intellectual visions could only be discernible when they were accompanied by a distinct godly pitch.

By looking at a variety of spiritual genres cultivated by women from different locations and traditions, this article will identify and examine the precise soundscapes that configure the vivid awareness of the divine: its resounding quality, pitch, accentual patterns, onomatopoeias, intensity and its discordant or harmonic nature. This analysis will also consider sound as a source of learning, thus challenging the notion that any representations of godliness were more visually graphic and ecstatic than proactive in women’s articulation of knowledge. As a result, early modern women’s spiritual writings emerge as a global genre that goes beyond Biblical mediated manifestations of the sacred to become a literary exploration of the divine through a sensorial and sonic experience.