"I feel you": Using the mother's gaze to see beyond otherness

This article is focused on a new narrative form of the Planctus Mariae: the prayer to the glorious Mary in order to obtain the tale of the pain she felt during the death of her Son. Through the analysis of some textual examples – in particular of the Planctus written by the Cistercian monk Oglerio from Lucedio at the end of the 12th century – this paper aims to underline a different dramatic device of the representation of the Passion of Christ which is characterised by a very specific ‘affective gaze’, capable to see and to feel the likeness to God at the same time. As a consequence, the concept of ‘otherness’ is defined according to an affective knowledge and must be intended as ‘unlikeness’ to God. From Bernard to Dante, seeing through the eyes of Mary make it possible both to acknowledge the ‘other’ as a neighbour, and to recognize in God “la nostra effigie”