在文末，瑪格麗感謝她的手抄員時說到：他用「他自己的」寫法和拼法呈現了「真實的意義」。如果《瑪格麗．坎普傳》的文字所呈現的只是手抄員筆下真實意思的話，那麼對瑪格麗而言，真實的意思又在何處？
在中世紀的寫作傳統中，作者和讀者的關係是一股閱讀和書寫欲望的流動。而在這一股欲望的傳遞之中牽涉到一個重要的議題就是：作家必須與語言和肉體掙扎。語言和肉體是中世紀兩項重要知識傳遞的媒介，不過它們的物質性卻常常讓作家和讀者在追求神聖知識的過程中受到限制。於是在中世紀宗教文學裡，我們可以嗅出一股追求新語言和新肉體的欲望，而這些新的媒介被賦予確保上帝的知識不被扭曲和誤傳的使命。新的肉體是原來的肉體被去肉體化，去掉其不可靠的感官經驗；而新的語言則是將原有的語言去語言化，去掉其複雜、獨斷、且常常誤導讀者的華麗文字以及意旨－意符關係。而所謂忠於瑪格麗原味的意義便是由這兩項新的媒介來傳遞。瑪格麗的哭泣奇觀所展現的是一種去語言化的哭泣語言，以及一種去肉體化的抽續肉體，這兩者將她與上帝溝通的神聖幻象轉化成真實世界的即時文本。常人理智確實無法理解瑪格麗的哭泣語言以及抽續肉體，不過她的哭泣奇觀就像彌撒一樣使她的觀眾讀者親身經歷上帝的存在。面對這樣不確定、不熟悉、駭人的哭泣奇觀，觀看者受到的驚嚇在他們心中形成一個恐懼的意符。在中世紀基督文明之中，恐懼就是面臨上帝的存在所應有的態度，恐懼就是神聖知識的開端。而唯有瑪格麗哭泣的語言和抽續的肉體才能呈現出這種文字所欠缺的氛圍，才能將最終權威（auctoritas）的意義以及作者回歸權威的欲望安然傳遞到讀者身上。

Margery thanks her scribe for making the “trewe sentens” “in hys maner of wrytyng & spellyng” (made the true sentences in his manner of writing and spelling), but his manner is “not clerly ne opynly to owr maner of spekyng” (not clearly and openly in accordance with our manner of speaking). If The Book cannot present the exact truth for Margery, where might be the “trewe sentens” in her “maner of wrytyng & spellyng”? From the relation between readers and writers, between reading and writing the authority in the Middle Ages is born a translation of desire and failure from medieval writers to readers. In this translation of desire lies a crucial struggle with body and language—the two primary media in human representation. The struggles compel writers to transplant in their readers a readerly desire for the authority and at the same time spur them to search for new media of body and language: the de-fleshed body that is devoid of its sensual natures and the de-languaged language that is empty of arbitrary signifier-signified relation and misleading rhetoric. It is with these two media: the de-languaged language of crying and tears and the de-fleshed body of compulsion, that Margery translates her divine visionary text into wonder and marvel in the eyes of her audience. Like masses, Margery’s crying spectacle, with its de-languaged crying language and defleshed compulsive body, creates a signifier of fear that allows the audience experience the presence, and acquire the knowledge, of God, while fear is the beginning of the unknowable, the uncertainty, and the beginning of the knowledge of God for medieval Christians.

Works Cited
Akel, Catherine S. “‘… a schort tretys and a comfortybl…’: Perception and Purpose of Margery Kempe’s Narrative.” English Studies 82:1 (Sept 2001): 1-13.
Allen, Hope Emily. Prefatory Note. The Book of Margery Kempe. Margery Kempe liii-lxviii.
Aquinas, St. Thomas. Summa Theologiæ: Latin text, English Translation, Introduction, Notes, Appendices & Glossary. Ed. T. C. O’Brien. Cambridge:Blackfriars, 1976.
Armstrong, Elizabeth Psakis. “ ‘Understanding by Feeling’ in Margery Kempe’s Book.” McEntire 17-35.
Atkinson, Clarissa. “ ‘Ordained to Be a Mirror’: Interpretations of Margery Kempe.” Mystic and Pilgrim: The Book and the World of Margery Kempe. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1983. 195-220.
Augustine, St. City of God. Henry Bettenson, trans. London: Penguine, 1984.
---. Confessions. Trans. Henry Chadwick. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1991.
---. On Christian Teaching. Trans. R. P. H. Green. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1999.
Bennett, Jill. “Stigmata and Sense Memory: St Francis and the Affective Image.” Art History. 24:1 (Feb 2001): 1-16.
Blamires, Alcuin, ed. Woman Defamed and Woman Defended: an Anthology of Medieval Texts. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992.
Blunt, John Henry, ed. The Myroure of Oure Ladye. EETSES 19. London: Trübner & Co. for EETS, 1873.
Bonaventure, St. Meditations on the Life of Christ: An Illustrated Manuscript of the Fourteenth Century, Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale MS. ITAL. 115. Trans. Isa Ragusa. New Jersey: Princeton, 1961.
Bremner, Eluned. “Margery Kempe and the Critics: Disempowerment and Deconstruction.” McEntire 117-35.
Burrow, J. A. “Writers, Audiences, and Readers.” Medieval Writers and Their Work: Middle English Literature 1100-1500. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1982. 24-55.
Bynum, Caroline Walker. Holy Feast and Holy Fast: the Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women. Berkeley: U of California P, 1987.
Chaucer, Geoffrey. Riverside Chaucer. Ed. Larry D. Benson. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1987.
Chrysostom, St John. Homily IX on St Paul’s Epistle to Timothy. Blamires 58-59.
Coxe, A. Cleveland, ed. The Ante-Nicene Fathers Vol. III., IV. Trans. P. Holmes and S. Thelwall. Edinburgh: T & T Clark. The Tertullian Project. Comp. Roger Pearse. 17 Mar. 2003 < http://www.tertullian.org/anf/index.htm>.
De Pizan, Christine. The Book of the City of Ladies. Trans. Earl Jeffrey Richards. New York: Persea Books, 1998.
Derrida, Jacques. “How to Avoid Speaking: Denials.” Derrida and Negative Theology. Ed. Harold Coward and Toby Foshay. Albany: State U of New York P, 1992. 73-142.
Duffy, Eamon. The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England 1400-1580. New Haven: Yale UP, 1992.
Finke, Laurie A. “Mystical Bodies and the Dialogics of Vision.” Maps of Flesh and Light: the Religious Experience of Medieval Women Mystics. Ed. Ulrike Wiethaus. New York: Syracuse UP, 1993. 28-44.
Frunivall, F. J., ed. “How to Hear Mass.” The Minor Poems of the Vernon MS. Pt. II. EETSOS 117. London: Trübner & Co. for EETS, 1901. 493-511.
Goodman, Anthony. Introduction. Margery Kempe and Her World. London: Longman, 2002. 1-14.
Gower, John. The Complete Works of John Gower. Ed. G.C. Macaulay. Oxford: Clarendon P, 1902. University of Virginia Library Electronic Text Center. Feb 1994. U of Virginia. 29 Dec 2002. <http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/browse-mixed-new?id=GowConf&images=images/modeng&data=/lv1/Archive/mideng-parsed&tag=public >.
Hopenwasser, Nanda. “Performance Artist and Her Performance Text: Margery Kempe on Tour.” Performance and Transformation: New Approaches to Late Medieval Religion and Literature. Eds. Mary A. Suydam and Joanna E. Ziegler. Houndmills: Macmillan P, 1999. 97-131.
Jantzen, Grace M. “The language of Ineffability.” Power, Gender and Christian Mysticism. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1995. 278-321
Julian of Norwich. Revelations of Divine Love. Trans. Elizabeth Spearing. London: Penguin, 1998.
Kalve, Kari. “ ‘The muthes wit’: Reading, Speaking, and Eating in Ancrene Wisse.” Essays in Medieval Studies 14: Popular Piety: Prayers, Devotion and Cult. Ed. Aleen J Frantzen. Chicago: Illinois Medieval Association, 2002. 10 Apr. 2002 < http://www.luc.edu/publications/ medieval/vol14/waters.html>.
Klein, Ernest, ed. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1967.
Kempe, Margery. The Book of Margery Kempe Vol I. Ed. Sanford Brown Meech and Hope Emily Allen. EETSOS 212. Oxford: Oxford UP for EETS, 1940.
Kempis, à Kempis. The Imitation of Christ: The First English Translation of the ‘Imitatio Christi.’ Ed. B. J. H. Biggs. EETSOS 309. Oxford: Oxford UP for EETS, 1997.
Kovle, V. A. “Audience and Image: Some Medieval Hypotheses.” Chaucer and the Imagery of Narrative: the First Five Canterbury Tales. California: Stanford UP, 1984. 9-58.
Langland, William. Richard the Redeless. The Visions of William Concerning Piers the Plowman in three Parallel texts together with Richard the Redeless. Ed. Walter W. Skeat. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1979. 603-28.
Lawler, Traugott. “Experience and Authority.” The One and the Many in the Canterbury Tales. Hamden: Archon Books, 1980. 83-108.
Lochrie, Karma. Margery Kempe and Translations of the Flesh. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1991.
Lawton, David. “Voice, Authority, and Blasphemy in the Book of Margery Kempe.” McEntire 93-115.
LeVert, Laurelle. “‘Crucifye hem, Crucifye hem’: the Subject and Affective Response in Middle English Passion Narratives.” Essays in Medieval Studies 14: Popular Piety: Prayers, Devotion and Cult. Ed. Aleen J Frantzen. Chicago: Illinois Medieval Association, 2002. 10 Apr. 2002 <http://www.luc.edu/publications/ medieval/vol14/waters.html>.
Luibheid, Colm, trans. Pseudo-Dionysius: the Complete Works. New York: Paulist P, 1987.
Mahoney, Dhira B. “Margery Kempe’s Tears and the Power over Language.” McEntire 37-50.
Malory, Sir Thomas. Le Morte D’Arthure. Ed. William Caxton and H. Oskar Sommer. Dec. 2001. Middle English Compendium. 1 Apr. 2002. <http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/c/cme/cme-idx?type=HTML&rgn=DIV0&byte=25972292>.
Marie de France. The Lais of Marie de France. Trans. Glyn S. Burgess and Keith Busby. 2nd ed. London: Penguin, 1999.
McEntire, Sandra J, ed. Margery Kempe: A Book of Essays. New York: Garland Publishing, INC, 1992.
McEntire, Sandra J. “The Journey into Selfhood: Margery Kempe and Feminine Spirituality.” McEntire 51-69.
Mcnamara, Jo Ann. “The Rhetoric of Orthodoxy: Clerical Authority and Female Innovation in the Struggle with Heresy.” Maps of Bodies and Light: the Religious Experience of Medieval Women Mystics. Ed. Ulrike Wiethaus. New York: Syracuse UP, 1993. 9-27.
Medcalf, Stephen. “Inner and Outer.” The Later Middle Ages. Ed. Stephen Medcalf. London: Methuen, 1981. 108-171.
Minnis, A. J. Medieval Theory of Authorship: Scholastic Literary Attitudes in the Later Middle Ages. 2nd ed. Philadephis: U of Pennsylvanis P, 1988.
Perkins, Judith. The Suffering Self: Pain and Narrative Presentation in the Early Christian Era. London: Routledge, 1995.
Petroff, Elizabeth Alvilda. “Women and Mysticism in the Medieval World.” Body and Soul: Essays on Medieval Women and Mysticism. New York: Oxford UP, 1994. 3-24.
---. “Unmasking Women: Medieval Responses to the Unknowability of the Lady.” Body and Soul: Essays on Medieval Women and Mysticism. New York: Oxford UP, 1994. 25-50.
Potkay, Monica Brzezinski. “Body and Soul: Religious Constructions of Female Authorship.” Minding the Body: Women and Literature in the Middle Ages, 800-1500. Ed. Kinley E. Roby. New York: Twayne, 1997. 15-29.
Power, Eileen. “Nunneries.” Medieval Women. Ed. M. M. Postan. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1975. 89-99.
Renevey, Denis. “Margery’s Performing Body: the Translation of Late Medieval Discursive Religious Practices.” Writing Religious Women: Female Spiritual and Textual Practices in Late Medieval England. Eds. Denis Renevey and Christiania Whitehead. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2000. 197-216.
Riehle, wolfgang. The Middle English Mystics. London: Routledge, 1981.
Rigby, S. H. “The Wife of Bath, Christine De Pizan, and the Medieval Case for Women.” The Chaucer Review 35:2 (2000): 133-65.
Salu, M. B., trans. Ancrene Riwle. London: U of Exeter Press, 1990.
Simons, Walter. “Reading a Saint’s Body: Rapture and Bodily Movement in the Vitae of Thirteenth-Century Beguines.” Framing Medieval Bodies. Ed. Sarah Kay and Miri Rubin. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1994. 10-23.
Staley, Lynn. “Conclusion: Fictions of Community.” Margery Kempe’s Dissenting Fiction. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State UP, 1994. 171-199.
Swanson, R. N. Religion and Devotion in Europe, c. 1215-c. 1515. Cambridge: Cambrdige UP, 1995.
Szel. Timea K. “From Woe to Weal and Weal to Woe: Notes on the Structure of The Book of Margery Kempe.” McEntire 73-91.
Tertullian. On the Apparel of Women. Trans. S. Thelwall. The Ante-Nicene Fathers Vol. IV. A. Cleveland Coxe. 21 Mar. 2003 <http://www.tertullian.org/anf/anf04/anf04-07.htm#P351_73144>.
---. On Prayer. Trans. S. Thelwall. The Ante-Nicene Fathers Vol. III. pt. III. A. Cleveland Coxe. 21 Mar. 2003 <http://www.tertullian.org/anf/anf03/anf03-51.htm#P11759_3301283>.
---. The Prescriptions Against Heretics. Trans. P. Holmes. The Ante-Nicene Fatehrs Vol. III. pt. II. A Cleveland Coxe. 21 Mar. 2003. <http://www.tertullian.org/anf/anf03/anf03-24.htm#P3125_1133921>.
The Tertullian Project. Comp. Roger Pearse. 17 Mar. 2003 <http://www.tertullian.org>.
Thornton, Martin. “Margery and the School of St Victor (II).” Margery Kempe: An Example in the English Pastoral Tradition. London: S. P. C. K, 1960. 42-49.
Voaden, Rosalynn. “Margery Kempe: the Woman who would not Go Away.” God’s Words, Women’s Voices: the Discernment of Spirits in the Writing of Late-Medieval Women Visionaires. Suffolk: York Medieval Press, 1999. 109-57.
Waters, Claire M. “Dangerous Beauty, Beautiful Speech: Gendered Eloquence in Medieval Preaching.” Essays in Medieval Studies 14: Popular Piety: Prayers, Devotion and Cult. Ed. Aleen J Frantzen. Chicago: Illinois Medieval Association, 2002. 10 Apr. 2002 <http://www.luc.edu/publications/ medieval/vol14/waters.html; My document/thesis/online critical essays>.
Wogan-Browne, Jocelyn, et al., eds. The Idea of the Vernacular: An Anthology of Middle English Literary Theory, 1280-1520. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State UP, 1999.