Nobility and Annihilation in Marguerite Porete's Mirror of Simple Souls, livre ebook

An in-depth examination of the work of this important medieval woman mystic.

An in-depth examination of the work of this important medieval woman mystic.

This first book-length study of Marguerite Porete's important mystical text, The Mirror of Simple Souls, examines Porete's esoteric and optimistic doctrine of annihilation-the complete transformative union of the soul into God-in its philosophical and historical contexts. Porete was burned at the stake as a relapsed heretic in 1310. Her theological treatise survived the flames, but it circulated anonymously or under male pseudonyms until 1946, and her message endures as testament to a distinctive form of medieval spirituality.

Robinson begins by focusing on traditional speculations regarding the origin, nature, limitations, and destiny of humankind. She then examines Porete's work in its more immediate historical and literary contexts, focusing on the ways in which Porete conceptualizes and expresses her radical doctrine of annihilation through contemporary metaphors of lineage and nobility.

Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. NOBILITY AS HISTORICAL REALITY AND THEOLOGICAL MOTIF
Reconstructing the Medieval Nobility
Hrotsvit of Gandersheim: The Beauty of High Birth
Hildegard of Bingen: Elitism Upheld
Bernard of Clairvaux: Egalitarianism Upheld
Le Roman de la Rose: The Nobility of Virtue
Hadewijch of Brabant: The Soul's Noble Image and Likeness

2.THE "BEGUINE CLERGERESSE" AND HER MIRROR
Neither Lowly Writer Nor Lowly Reader
The Text of The Mirror of Simple Souls
The Seven-Stage Path to Annihilation
"Taking Leave of the Virtues" and Possessing All

3. GOD, THE SOUL, AND NO-THINGNESS
God as Trinitarian Ground and Creator
The Roots of a Theological Anthropology
Creation and Fall of Humanity
Fall(s) and Return(s)

4. NOBILITY AND ANNIHILATION
The Three Beautiful Considerations
Annihilation: The Soul Without a Why
Traditional Mystical Metaphors
Nobility, Lineage, and Annihilation
A "Simple" Noble Soul?

Conclusion
Appendix
Notes
Bibliography
Index