Le plus de l’âme. María Zambrano y la mística de la Edad Media.

On the basis of a reading of Filosofía y Poesía, this paper reassesses the links between María Zambrano’s reconquest or discovery of ‘poetic reason’ and the mediaeval mystical texts which she probably only knew through their reception in the Spanish Golden Age, especially Saint John of the Cross. We analyse a chapter from The Mirror of the Simple
Souls by Marguerite of Hainaut, also known as Marguerite Porete, who was burned at the stake in 1310 and was acknowledged by some as a beguine on account of the range of her knowledge. It is unlikely that María Zambrano ever read the Mirror, but Filosofía y Poesía provides some clues for reassessing the language of the Mirror in particular and that of mysticism in general in the Middle Ages. These are the keys to rethinking our past from today’s perspective, gathering together its findings, and echoing with Zambrano the striving for a reconciliation between philosophy and poetry in poetic reason.