‘The Poetics of Mysticism’, ed. Edward Howells and Mark McIntosh, The Oxford Handbook to Mystical Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), pp. 241-64. (original) (raw)
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2009
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Academia Letters, 2021
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Despite the explosion of interest in Jewish mysticism in recent decades, scholars have only recently begun to explore in any depth how mystical texts function as literature. This includes not just literary readings of Jewish mystical texts, but also extends to questions of mystical and literary efficacy. In other words, what kinds of strategies are employed in Jewish mystical writing to convey mystical content and ethos, to shape religious subjectivity in distinctive ways, or even to influence the cosmos through specialized acts of writing and reading (i.e., producing and consuming literature)? Moreover, how do these literary and mystical projects intersect, reinforce, and possibly even place limits upon one another in different textual settings? Finally, how might consideration of these topics change the way we think about Jewish literary studies more broadly?
Christian Mysticism: A Meta-Theoretical Approach – Part I
Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, 2014
In this paper the work of three outstanding representatives of poetical (type III) mysticism is briefly considered. Although exemplars of speculative and systematic mysticism also engage in quasi-poetical prose in their formulations and sermons, they do not do so in the same highly expressive, direct and emotionally intense manner that is typical of the type III mystic. For this reason Richard Rolle, Henry Suso and Madame Guyon were selected as exemplars of poetical mysticism, and discussed in section 1. The poetically-inclined Christian mystic is not interested in either metaphysical speculation, or in Aristotelian analyses of the nature and elements of the mystic life (see paper 2). It is a deeply personal matter of the heart, of recounting one's experiences on the mystic journey and singing the praises of the divine, rather than merely a matter of the intellect. In section 2 the pragmatic (type IV) theologies of John Tauler, the anonymously authored Cloud of Unknowing, and the work of the Spanish mystic, Miguel de Molinos are reviewed. Their mystical writings and activities have a much stronger practical focus and action-orientation (in the subjectivist-empyrean mode), compared to the other mystics.
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Aliter, 2021
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Poets of Divine Love. Franciscan Mystical Poetry of the Thirteenth Century
Quaderni D Italianistica, 2007
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Poetry as an Artistic Expression of Mystic Experiences
2010
Art is a human activity but its distinctiveness lies in being independent. A poet as an artist has certainly some initial motivating impulse, albeit love for women, country, God, world, Nature etc. This artistic impulse is free from the set norms and social conventions. What urges an artist to express an inner excitement, restlessness, and compulsion to express the inexpressible experiences to the external world. Poetry is a pure art, because it serves as an ultimate medium for the ineffable experiences and observations particularly when a mystic poet who feels pain to give vent to his spiritual achievements. The present paper tries to illustrate such mystic experiences that have tempted the mystic poets to use poetry as an artistic expression. Though there is a lot of work done on mysticism and mystic poetry but my paper has a distinct perspective and throws light on the mystic tendencies of some of the great English mystic poets mentioned in the paper. All art in all times has bee...