The Dark Night of the Soul
A poem of eight stanzas by the Carmelite friar John of the Cross, with his own unfinished commentary. It describes the soul’s passage to union with God as a journey by night, through a purgation first of the senses and then of the spirit.
The poem speaks in the voice of a lover who slips out of a sleeping house at night to meet the beloved. In the prose commentary John reads it as the soul’s journey to God. He distinguishes a night of the senses, which he says comes to many who persevere in prayer, from a night of the spirit, which he calls far more severe and the lot of few. The commentary explains the first two stanzas, begins the third and then breaks off.
The translator’s introduction describes the work as a continuation of John’s Ascent of Mount Carmel. It is a treatise of spiritual direction, and it is evidence for John’s teaching, not for the events of his life. The text gives no date of composition.
Cited in
- 24 August 1562, firm date