Prédikáció és imagináció

My paper aims to scrutinize two interconnected details of different sermons written by Zsigmond Csúzy. The Paulist author, a representative preacher of the early 18th century, has recently received more critical attention within literary studies due to his elaborate baroque style. Both of his Good Friday sermons (1723 and 1724) contain very similar but at some points different details on the figure of the crucified Jesus Christ. In the 1724 sermon the author transforms the enumeration of the elements of the suffering body into a visionary scene that reminds the reader of the medieval hagiographic theme called the bending crucifix. While interpreting these elements as visual images, the text performs a mystical interpretation as a devotional practice. To produce complex meanings, the believer needs a very elaborate mental gallery and a disciplined fantasy that should be constantly practiced and controlled by institutional and private religious practices – just like sermons.