Originally published as an English translation in 1981, The Middle English Mystics is a crucial contribution to the study of the literature of English mysticism. This book surveys and analyses the language of metaphor in the writings of such mystics as Richard Rolle, Walter Hilton, Julian of Norwich, and in such anonymous works as The Cloud of Unknowing and the Ancrene Wisse. The main emphasis of this comparative and stylistic study is not theological but rather the means by which theological concepts are communicated through language. The book sets the English mystics in perspective by establishing their place in the European mystical movement of the Middle Ages. It shows how intricate the relationship between English, and continental mysticism really is. The book suggests that there is clear links between English and German female mysticism, yet the mysticism is in the main due not so much to specific influences as to the common background of Christian theology and mysticism.
Preface
Abbreviations
Introduction
1 The Public for Mystical Literature in England
2. The Interrelation Between Continental and English Mysticism
3. The Song of Songs and Metaphors for Love in English Mysticism
4. Metaphors for the Preparation for the Unio Mystica
Man’s Withdrawal into Himself; The Soul’s ‘Emptying Itself’ as Prerequisite for the Unio Mystica
The Laying Bare of the Soul
Mystical Annihilation
5. Metaphors for the Way of the Soul to God
6. Metaphors for Speaking About God in English Mysticism
7. Technical Terms for the Mystical Union and for Ecstasy
Unio and Unitas of Man and God
Extasis and Excessus Mentis
The Mystical Raptus
The Familiaritas cum Deo
The Commercium cum Deo
8. The Experience of God as a Spiritual Sense Perception
8.1. The Unio as Mystical Enjoyment of God
8.1a. The Fruitio Dei
8.1b. The Eating and Tasting of God
8.2. Felen and Feling as Mystical Terms
8.3. The Touching of Man and God
8.4. The Unio Mystica as a Smelling and Hearing or Speaking of God
8.5. Excursus: The Significance of Metaphors in Music in English Mysticism
8.6. The Visio Dei
9. The Metaphorical Complex of Having God
10. The Mystical Experience of God as Rest, Sleep, Death and Complete Absorption of the Self
11. The Image of God in the Soul, Mystical Deification and Union in the Ground of the Soul
11.1. The Imago and Similitudo Character of the Soul and its Reformatio
11.2. The Deification of the Soul
11.3. The Ground of the Soul in English Mysticism
Conclusion
Notes
Select Bibliography
Middle English Word Index
Index of Names and Titles
Biography
Wolfgang Riehle
