San juan de la cruz biography examples

John of the Cross becomes a living language that, drinking in various sources, seeks the expression of the arrobo and the ecstasy of the mystical union. Its purpose is to capture, or at least let us glimpse, that invisible and ineffable reality that is divine love, appealing to the symbolism and the rich expressive possibilities of an elaborate language.

It is precisely these two factors that attract and fascinate even unbelievers, because their verses, operating fundamentally as expressive ways of an intimate personal experience, do not compromise beliefs, traditions or cultures not shared by the subject. As fruits of this mystical outburst, far from any logical discourse, the irrational, subconscious and intuitive elements predominate in the major poems of San Juan de la Cruz, which translate stylistically into a tendency towards synthesis and a great expressive density.

In order to communicate the sensations experienced, it dispenses with every superfluous element and uses the noun profusely, to the detriment of verbs and adjectives. In order to make known the joys that the mystic bond produces.

San juan de la cruz biography examples

It uses profusely the affective turns, repetitions, antitheses, chaotic enumerations, the sudden passage from one theme to another or the allegorical references, based, in their greater part, on the subject of profane love. It does not exclude also the popular and rustic lexicon, dialects and diminutives,. Thus, combining the old symbology of the Song of Songs with the formulas of Petrarchism, St.

John of the Cross produces a rich mystical literature that has its roots in Thomistic theology and in the German and Flemish medieval mystics. Its production reflects a broad religious formation, although it reveals the influence of the traditional songbook of the sixteenth century, especially in the use of profane love the figures of the lover and the beloved to symbolize and represent the mystical feeling of divine love.

Open Library American Libraries. Search the Wayback Machine Search icon An illustration of a magnifying glass. Sign up for free Log in. It appears your browser does not have it turned on. Please see your browser settings for this feature. EMBED for wordpress. Ello le hizo muy duro consigo mismo; en cambio, con los otros era bueno, amable y condescendiente.

Conoce a Santa Teresa Santa Teresa fundaba por entonces los conventos de la rama reformada de las carmelitas. Cuentos de Casals. Pronto, se dio Editorial Combel. He had no change of clothing and a penitential diet of water, bread and scraps of salt fish. The paper was passed to him by the friar who guarded his cell. He had managed to pry open the hinges of the cell door earlier that day.

After being nursed back to health, first by Teresa's nuns in Toledo , and then during six weeks at the Hospital of Santa Cruz, John continued with the reforms. At that meeting John was appointed superior of El Calvario, an isolated monastery of around thirty friars in the mountains about 6 miles 9. While at El Calvario he composed the first version of his commentary on his poem The Spiritual Canticle , possibly at the request of the nuns in Beas.

In he moved to Baeza , a town of around 50, people, to serve as rector of a new college, the Colegio de San Basilio, for Discalced friars in Andalusia. It opened on 13 June He remained in post until , spending much of his time as a spiritual director to the friars and townspeople. In May , at the General Chapter of the Discalced Carmelites in Lisbon , John was elected Vicar Provincial of Andalusia, a post which required him to travel frequently, making annual visitations to the houses of friars and nuns in Andalusia.

During this time he founded seven new monasteries in the region, and is estimated to have travelled around 25, km. To fulfill this role, he had to return to Segovia in Castile, where he also took on the role of prior of the monastery. His condition worsened, however, and he died there of erysipelas on 14 December The head and torso were retained by the monastery at Segovia.

They were venerated until , when on orders from Rome designed to prevent the veneration of remains without official approval, the remains were buried in the ground. In the s they were disinterred, and are now sited in a side chapel in a marble case above a special altar. Proceedings to beatify John began between and When his feast day was added to the General Roman Calendar in , it was assigned to 24 November, since his date of death was impeded by the then-existing octave of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.

John of the Cross is considered one of the foremost poets in Spanish. Although his complete poems add up to fewer than 2, verses, two of them, the Spiritual Canticle and the Dark Night of the Soul , are widely considered masterpieces of Spanish poetry, both for their formal style and their rich symbolism and imagery. His theological works often consist of commentaries on the poems.

All the works were written between and his death in The Spiritual Canticle is an eclogue in which the bride, representing the soul , searches for the bridegroom, representing Jesus Christ , and is anxious at having lost him. Both are filled with joy upon reuniting. It can be seen as a free-form Spanish version of the Song of Songs at a time when vernacular translations of the Bible were forbidden.

The first 31 stanzas of the poem were composed in while John was imprisoned in Toledo. After his escape it was read by the nuns at Beas, who made copies of the stanzas. Over the following years, John added further lines. Today, two versions exist: one with 39 stanzas and one with 40 with some of the stanzas ordered differently. A second edition, which contains more detail, was written in —6.

The Dark Night , from which the phrase Dark Night of the Soul takes its name, narrates the journey of the soul from its bodily home to union with God. It happens during the "dark", which represents the hardships and difficulties met in detachment from the world and reaching the light of the union with the Creator. There are several steps during the state of darkness, which are described in successive stanzas.

The main idea behind the poem is the painful experience required to attain spiritual maturity and union with God. The poem was likely written in or In —5, John wrote a commentary on the first two stanzas and on the first line of the third stanza. The Ascent of Mount Carmel is a more systematic study of the ascetical endeavour of a soul seeking perfect union with God and the mystical events encountered along the way.

Although it begins as a commentary on The Dark Night , after the first two stanzas of the poem, it rapidly diverts into a full treatise. It was composed some time between and A four-stanza work, Living Flame of Love , describes a greater intimacy , as the soul responds to God's love. These, together with his Dichos de Luz y Amor or "Sayings of Light and Love" along with Teresa's own writings, are the most important mystical works in Spanish, and have deeply influenced later spiritual writers across the world.

They include: T. His writings were first published in by Diego de Salablanca. The numerical divisions in the work, still used by modern editions of the text, were introduced by Salablanca they were not in John's original writings to help make the work more manageable for the reader. This edition was largely followed by later editors, although editions in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries gradually included a few more poems and letters.

The first French edition was published in Paris in , [ 47 ] and the first Castilian edition in in Brussels. A critical edition of John's works in English was published by E. Allison Peers in The influences on John's writing are subject to an ongoing debate. It is widely acknowledged that at Salamanca university there would have existed a range of intellectual positions.

The philosophy courses John probably took in logic, natural and moral philosophy, can be reconstructed, but Bezares argues that John in fact abandoned his studies at Salamanca in to join Teresa, rather than graduating. John was influenced heavily by the Bible. Scriptural images are common in both his poems and prose. In total, there are 1, explicit and implicit quotations from the Bible in his works.

In addition, John shows at occasional points the influence of the Divine Office. This demonstrates how John, steeped in the language and rituals of the Church, drew at times on the phrases and language here. It has rarely been disputed that the overall structure of John's mystical theology, and his language of the union of the soul with God, is influenced by the pseudo-Dionysian tradition.

It is widely acknowledged that John may have been influenced by the writings of other medieval mystics, though there is debate about the exact thought which may have influenced him, and about how he might have been exposed to their ideas.