Dark Night of the Soul

Poem 721 (“Behind Me—dips Eternity”) by Emily Dickinson (1861)

An example of the understated, quiet urgency and frank spiritualism typical of the mystical vision, this Dickinson poem, unlike St. John of the Cross’s, is neither tied to nor limited by an institutional Church’s doctrine. The poem uses the evocative vocabulary of the spirit to suggest the power and energy of the soul, the soul not defined by or contained within any theology.

“Nada Te Turbe” by Teresa of Ávila (c. 1570)

The mystic most aligned to John’s Catholic sensibility and one of his closet associates in his campaign to reform the institutional Catholic Church, Teresa here offers a direct advocacy of how to live with the soul. The title translates “Let Nothing Disturb You,” and the poem gently urges the reader to ignore the earthly distractions the soul cannot afford and to trust in God. There is a translation by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow some three centuries later.

“Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” by Walt Whitman (1860)

A meditation on time and how time can be transcended into eternity, this Whitman poem uses as metaphor the crossing back and forth of the ferry taking workers into Manhattan. In Whitman’s optimistic and uplifting contemplation on the expansive reach of time and how each individual particle of humanity is part of a radiant cosmic-wide energy field that is timeless, the mystic Whitman echoes John’s visionary perception, but without the institutional Church.

“St. John of the Cross: The Depth, Height, and Edges of Silence” by Cyril O’Regan (2018)

A contemporary reading of the mystic vision of John, this article focuses on how John uses allegorical symbols—darkness, light, lilies, hands—to suggest the mystical world of enlightenment. The article focuses particularly on how John uses silences, that is, how the poem moves toward a moment in which the poet is lost to explaining in words the feeling of union with God.

“The Dark Night of the Soul” by A. Barratt Brown (1923)

Still one of the most reliable readings of John that is not driven by Catholic theology, in this article, Brown examines the poem as an example of one man, anxious and terrified, handling profound depression and circumstances he cannot control nor see an end to. The reading then is more psychological than theological, as it treats John as a man and a prisoner, not a mystic or a saint-in-making.

“Musings on ‘The Dark Night of the Soul’” by J. H. Coe (2000)

A wide-ranging reading of John’s meditation that fuses theology and psychoanalysis, this article explores the tricky metaphor of the poet’s union with God that skirts homoeroticism in its use of frank sexual vocabulary and the imagery of love between a man and a woman (with the poet casting himself as the female half of the pair) to suggest the overwhelming experience of joining the Creator.

Flame of Love: Poems of the Spanish Mystics edited by Loren G. Smith (2005)

An indispensable anthology of the Spanish mystics, including John of the Cross, this edition provides a helpful introduction to the Spanish Counter-Reformation. The analysis of “Dark Night” approaches the poem as a guide to how the soul abandons the material realm and seeks the sweet affirmation of union with God.