Kathleen Jones

Poems of St. John of the Cross (eBook, PDF)

• Format: PDF

Produktbeschreibung

The first complete English translation in 40 years.

St John of the Cross is the supreme poet of the mystical tradition in Christianity. His poems are, quite simply, the most concise and beautiful expression of the experience of the love of God in Western literature. They are also the inspiration for his great prose works, which are extended commentaries on the poems.

Many of these stem from his imprisonment in Toledo in 1577-8, from which he had a dramatic escape, taking refuge in a 'Discalced' (barefoot) Carmelite convent, where he apparently dictated poems from a notebook he had managed to bring out of prison.

John was a man of his time and loved the literature, courtly and popular, of his age. Many of his poems reflect this in their imagery and metre. Others draw their inspiration from the Song of Songs in the Bible. So images of human love and nature make his poems readily accessible on an obvious level.

But the 'divine' intention is always there, and this is the quality Kathleen Jones has sought to bring out in her translation: 'Considerations of rhyme and metre have been treated as secondary to the importance of precise theological expression, and of conveying something of the lyricism and spiritual power of the original.'

Her main purpose is devotional, but her translation is a pleasure to read. The established Spanish text appears on left-hand pages with the English translation facing.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Bloomsbury UK eBooks
• Seitenzahl: 130
• Erscheinungstermin: 7. Januar 2010
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781441155351
• Artikelnr.: 40780827

Autorenporträt

Kathleen Jones is an editorial consultant to the new Butler's Lives of the Saints and edited two volumes in the series. She is Emeritus Professor of Social Policy in the University of York and was a member of the Archbishops' Commissions on Church and State and Marriage and of General Synod. The author of numerous professional and religious books, she lives in York.

Inhaltsangabe

Introduction
Songs of the Soul
I. On a dark night
II. Where are you hiding? (The Spiritual Canticle)
III. O living flame of love
IV. I entered, though I know not where
V. I live, but not within myself
VI. In my pursuit of Love divine
VII. Once a sad young shepherd
VIII. I know that river
Romances
IX. Romance 1: In the beginning the Word
X. Romance 2: In the splendour of love
XI. Romance 3: Son, I wish to give you
XII. Romance 4: Be it so, said the Father
XIII. Romance 5: This glorious hope
XIV. Romance 6: And so through the ages
XV. Romance 7: And now the time came
XVI. Romance 8: He called an archangel
XVII. Romance 9: At last came the hour
Miscellaneous verses
XVIII. Above the running water
XIX. Held fast, yet alone
XX. For all the beauty in the world
XXI. If you meet the Virgin
XXII. Remember the Creator
Sources