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Show COLLEGE OF HUMANITIES UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH ABSTRACTS REPRESENTING SALVATION WITHIN THE LEGEND OF THEOPHILUS Emma McFarland (Jerry Root) Department of Languages and Literature University of Utah The legend of Theophilus is a pre-Faustian tale of redemption. Having signed his soul to the devil, Theophilus entreats the Virgin to descend into hell on his behalf and retrieve the contract that damns him. This legend gains popularity throughout the thirteenth century as confession is institutionalized by the Catholic Church in 1215. It becomes and attestation to its medieval audience of both the Virgin's power as well as the importance of confession and quickly develops a written and iconographic tradition. The proliferation of these images speaks to the growing concern of individuals whose salvation depends on intermediation. These images can be seen as a response to the heightened stakes of self-representation in religious appeal and confession. In order to access the diversity and the scope of imagery representing this legend, a catalog has been compiled which includes information about extant manuscript illuminations, stained glass and sculpture in which Theophilus appears. Images of manuscript illuminations and stained glass have also been gathered in order to facilitate the comparison of these different representations. Coupled with readings from a multitude of fields such as art history, literary theory, literary criticism, and primary works, a multifaceted view of representation has emerged. Medieval vision theory implicates the viewer in representation though the act of looking: as a viewer's eyes receive an image, the image becomes a very part of the viewer himself. The legend of Theophilus embodies the condition of its medieval viewers and highlights the inextricability of representation from their salvation. Emma McFarland 47 |