St John of the Cross: His Life and Poetry

by Gerald Brenan

• ISBN13: 9780521099530
• ISBN10: 0521099536
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1975-07-24
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

The paperback edition of a very successful and in some ways remarkable book, first published in 1973. Gerald Brenan is well known for his 'expository' works on Spanish history and literature, and now in his eighties he has returned to an early interest in the Spanish mystics to produce an absorbing study of St John of the Cross, one of the foremost of Catholic mystics and poets. The book is perhaps the first in English to combine an objective - but sensitive and lively - account of St John's life with a fresh translation (by Mr Brenan's associate Lynda Nicholson) of his verse.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations

Preface

The Life

Childhood and youth

The Carmelite reform

Prison

El Calvario and Baeza

Granada

Segovia

Disgrace and death

The sequel

Appendices

The Works

An examination of the poetry

The prose works

The Poems: 'En una noche oscura': 'The Dark Night'

'Adónte te escondiste': 'The Spiritual Canticle' (Sanlúcar version)

'Oh, llama de amor viva': 'The Living Flame of Love'

'Quebien sé yo la fonte': 'Although by night'

'Un pastorcico, solo, estÃí penado': 'A Pastoral'

'Vivo sin vivir en má': 'Dying because I do not die'

'Tras de un amoroso lance': 'A quarry of Love'

'Entrÿme donde no supe': 'Verses written on an Ecstasy'

'Encima de las corrientes': 'Ballad on the Psalm 'By the Waters of Babylon''

'En el pincipio moraba': 'Ballad on Trinity and the Incarnation'

'Adónte te escondiste': 'The Spiritual Canticle (Jaén version)

notes to the poems

A select bibliography

Principal events in the life of St. John

Index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.