Apophatic mountains: Poetics of image in marguerite porete and John of the Cross

This paper aims to develop a theory of image based on the Mirror of Simple Souls by the French beguine Marguerite Porete and the poems and commentaries of the Spanish Carmelite John of the Cross. It performs a comparative analysis of the way these writers think using images, the way they create their images, and how these images relate to their texts. In particular, we will analyze the inherently polarized structure of the mountain image and the alternative articulation of this polarity through the image of the ladder, which both authors use and through which they chart a spiritual topography. We will examine how Marguerite and John of the Cross construct negative theologies through an apophatic meditational practice, and we will highlight analogies by discussing historical differences between the two authors. This will persuade us of the possible existence of an underground tradition of transmission of metaphors and apophatic discourses.