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Dark Night
Poems and Selected Prose
Brief Description
The major devotional work by one of the greatest Christian mystics and Spanish poets. O living flame of love, how tenderly you scorch me The poetry of the sixteenth-century Spanish mystic, John of the Cross, has inspired and consoled for hundreds of years, influencing writers from...
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Description
The major devotional work by one of the greatest Christian mystics and Spanish poets.
O living flame of love, how tenderly you scorch me
The poetry of the sixteenth-century Spanish mystic, John of the Cross, has inspired and consoled for hundreds of years, influencing writers from James Joyce to Seamus Heaney, Geoffrey Hill to T.S. Eliot and Mary Oppen. This new edition of his essential works, in a sensitive and luminous translation by Martha Sprackland, gathers John of the Cross's complete poems and a selection of his prose, including excerpts from his extended commentary on the poem Dark Night.
In his immediate, sensual writing, we see a soul searching for meaning and union with the divine—both meek and bold, deserving and undeserving, oscillating between light and dark, soaring and falling, desperation and salvation. Dark Night gives us a picture of faith at once confronting and inspiriting, and of the power of words as a means of spiritual transcendence.
Translated by Martha Sprackland, with an introduction by Colin Thompson.
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9780241699294
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 21 May 2026
Country: United Kingdom
Imprint: Penguin Classics
Contributors:
- Translated by Martha Sprackland
- Introduction by Dr Colin Thompson
Audience: General / adult, Tertiary education, Professional and scholarly
DIMENSIONS
Spine width: 15.0mm
Width: 128.0mm
Height: 198.0mm
Weight: 168g
Pages: 224
About the Author
John of the Cross (1542 -1591) was born in Fonteveros, Spain and joined the Carmelite Order as a young man. After meeting St Teresa of vila, he joined her attempts at reforming the order, embracing a more stringently monastic and studious life than Carmelites then practised. Arrested, imprisoned and tortured for his beliefs, he experienced a profound spiritual awakening during his captivity which inspired an outpouring of mystical poetry and writings, including 'The Ascent of Mount Carmel', 'The Dark Night' and 'The Spiritual Canticle'. He was canonized as a saint in 1726. Martha Sprackland is an editor, writer and translator from the north of England. She has translated poetry by Ana Gorria, Ver nica Viola Fisher and Gladys Mendia, and short fiction by Sara Mesa. In 2021 she was shortlisted for the Peirene-Stevns Translation Prize. Her debut collection of poems, CITADEL (Pavilion/LUP, 2020), was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, the John Pollard International Poetry Prize, and the Costa Poetry Award.
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