The dark night of the soul

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The dark night of the soul ( Spanish La noche oscura del alma , English The Dark Night of the Soul ) is the title of a poem by the Spanish Carmelite , Doctor of the Church and mystic John of the Cross , as well as the title of a comment he wrote on the text . He wrote the poem around 1576/78 when he was imprisoned in the order's dungeon in Toledo at the instigation of his order, from which he only managed to escape after almost a year.

The title of the poem and the poem itself have been quoted and received several times in Western intellectual history, especially in literature and music, up to the present day. In psychological and popular psychological literature, “the dark night of the soul” is also used as a metaphor for depression .

Interpretations

The poem, which reads like a love song, has been interpreted by Johannes von Kreuz himself in a detailed commentary that was printed together with the poems in 1618. As in the other poems written in prison - the Cantò Espiritual and Llama de amor viva - it is about the mystical union of the soul with God. The erotically charged images of the poems are reminiscent of the Song of Solomon in the Old Testament .

In the course of his preoccupation with Indian mysticism, CG Jung also dealt with occidental mystical authors, among others. a. also with the poetry of John of the Cross. He quotes him in several places in his writings in connection with the concept of individuation , the lifelong human development process.

The manuscripts

"En una noche oscura ..." , plaque at the former Convento del Carmen in Toledo

The original manuscript of the poem by John of the Cross has not survived. There are, however, about twelve early copies, most of which come from Spanish Carmelite monasteries that have since been closed. All manuscripts contain various copying errors by the copyists , but in the opinion of the experts, deliberate interventions in the text are in no way recognizable. The text was printed for the first time ( editio princeps ) in 1618 as part of a collection of spiritual texts by John of the Cross entitled "Obras espirituales que encaminan una alma a la perfecta unión con Dios".

Text output

A translation of the text into French with essays by José Angel Valente and Jacques Ancet has appeared within the UNESCO collection of representative works .

Historical-critical edition
  • Saint John of the Cross, Doctor of the Church. Dark Night of the Soul. Translated and edited, with an Introduction, by E. Allison Peers from the critical edition of P. Silverio de Santa Teresa, CD Electronic edition edited by Harry Plantinga. [Garden City, NY, Image Books 1959] Full text
German translations
  • The poem was translated into German by Melchior von Diepenbrock as part of the five-volume complete edition of his works by Aloysius from Immac. Conceptione and Ambroius a S. Theresia 1924–1929 was published by Theatiner-Verlag in Munich.
  • The dark night of the soul . Translated by Felix Braun . Ed. O. Müller 1952.
  • Complete Works Volume 2: The Dark Night and the Poems Übers. U. ed. by Irene Behn. Lectio Spiritualis. 4. Einsiedeln: Johannes Verl. 1961.
  • John of the Cross: The Dark Night and the Poems . Johannes Verlag, 1978
"The dark night" was broadcast by Hans Urs von Balthasar , the poems by Cornelia Capol and others. through by H. Leopold Davi.
  • Complete Works Vol. 1. The dark night of the soul . Complete New translation by Elisabeth Peeters, Elisabeth Hense, Ulrich Dobhan. Freiburg i. Br .: Herder. Herder Spectrum. ISBN 978-3-451-04374-1
numerous New editions

reception

music

La noche oscura del alma , op. 32 (1939) is a piece for orchestra and voice by the Norwegian composer Fartein Valen .

The Norwegian composer Ola Gjeilo composed the piece Dark Night of the Soul for piano and string quartet in 2013 .

The Canadian singer Loreena McKennitt wrote the song The Dark Night of the Soul for her own adaptation of the lyrics .

The album Dark Night of the Soul ( Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse Present: Dark Night of the Soul ) is a joint project by Sparklehorse and Danger Mouse in collaboration with David Lynch . The album was released in 2009, Sparklehorse (diMark Linkous) committed suicide in 2010.

Midnight - The Dark Night of the Soul is the title of an album by Sopor Æternus & the Ensemble of Shadows . (2013).

Dark Night of the Soul is the second track on the album Chimera (2004) by the Norwegian band Mayhem .

The English band Depeche Mode quotes a passage from the poem in their song Feel Loved from their album Exciter . Dave Gahan sings: " It's the dark night of my soul and temptation's taking hold, but through the pain and the suffering, through the heartache and trembling I feel loved ..."

The French singer and guitarist Vicente Pradal (* 1957) released the album La nuit obscure with settings of texts by John of the Cross in 1996 , which was awarded the Grand Prix of the Charles Cros Academy .

Philip Wesley: Dark Night of the Soul , for solo piano, 2012

The Norwegian band Ulver released 2013 as track 5 of their album Messe IX – VI.X Noche Oscura Del Alma

La Noche Oscura del Alma is a title in the album Snow Breath of Mike Williams , 2014

Juan de la Cruz, La noche oscura by the Spanish composer, guitarist and singer Amancio Prada is a very emotional interpretation of the text

literature

The English poet Ernest Dowson quotes the verse in his poem Absinthia Taetra from 1899 "The Dark Night of Soul" as "... that obscure night of the soul".

The Night Obscure Of The Soul is the title of a poem by the Scottish poet and literary critic Rachel Annand Taylor (1876-1960)

The dark night of St. John of the Cross is a story by Reinhold Schneider , which was published in 1943 in his anthology The Dark Night. Seven stories have been published.

The sentence " In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o'clock in the morning " is in the essay The Crack-Up by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1936).

Stephen King alludes to Fitzgerald's sentence in his novel Insomnia (1994), when his protagonist noticed the first signs of insomnia .

Graham Greene makes reference to the poem in his novel The End of the Affair (1951).

Douglas Adams plays in his novel Life, the Universe and Everything with the poem of John of the Cross, quoted and parodied him, and he finally quotes herself in the title The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (English. The Long Dark Tea -Time of the Soul ) of his novel, published in 1988, on the insignificance of modern spirituality.

Movie

La noche oscura (1989) is a film directed by Carlos Saura , who also wrote the screenplay using texts from John of the Cross. Juan Diego played the role of San Juan de la Cruz.

La Noche Oscura del Alma (2017) is the title of an episode in the television series Queen of the South , directed by Tina Mabry

literature

  • Fernando Urbina: The dark night. Way to freedom. John of the Cross and his thinking. O. Müller 1991. ISBN 3-70130707-5
  • Edith Stein : Science of the Cross. Study on Joannes a Cruce Louvain, Freiburg i. Br. 1954. (Edith Stein's works. 1.) Full text online on Wikisource .
  • A. Stoll: San Juan de la Cruz. En una noche oscura . In: M. Tietz (ed.): Spanish poetry from its beginnings to 1870. Individual interpretations. Frankfurt 1997.

Web links

German translation by Melchior Ferdinand Joseph Freiherr von Diepenbrock.

Individual evidence

  1. Günter Benker: The "dark night" of becoming whole. CG Jung and the mystic John of the Cross. Full text, pdf
  2. Manuscripts of the Dark Night , accessed January 11, 2016.
  3. The Love-Poetic Manuscript N ° 42
  4. ^ Text of the German translation in: Pasajes, Passages, Passagen . Festschrift for Christian Wentzlaff-Eggebert . Universidad de Sevilla 2004. p. 191. ISBN 978-84-4720716-9
  5. ^ In a dark night , translation by Peeters, Hense, Dobhahn, full text , accessed on August 23, 2015.
  6. CD recordings , accessed on July 25, 2015.
  7. Dark Night, Luminous Night. Retrieved May 10, 2019
  8. on youtube
  9. ^ Adaptation by Loreena McKennitt
  10. Arno Frank : So good, so illegal. In. Zeit-online, June 29, 2009. Retrieved August 21, 2015.
  11. video clip
  12. La noche oscura del alma is a title on the studio album Messe IX – VI.X (2013) by the Norwegian band Ulver . [1] , accessed July 11, 2018
  13. text
  14. ^ La Nuit Obscure de Juan de la Croix et Vicente Pradal , accessed March 25, 1016.
  15. Notes
  16. Amancio Prada
  17. on youtube
  18. Absinthia Taetra , accessed May 10, 2019
  19. ^ Text by Nicholson & Lee [eds.]: The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse. 1917. No. 331, accessed May 10, 2019
  20. Graham Greene. The end of the affair. London 2004. p. 36.
  21. IMDb

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