Syllabus
TERM 1
1. Introduction to the module
Simon Armitage, ‘Nest box’ (2025)
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2. Scriptural beginnings
Psalms (1410-430 BCE)
Song of Songs (971-931 BCE)
Book of Ezekiel (593-571 BCE)
Gospel of John (90-100 AD)
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3. Transcendence and unknowability
Hekhalot literature (trans. James Davila)
Gospel of Thomas (c. 60-250 AD)
Dionysius, The Mystical Theology (c. 500 AD)
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4. Art and music
Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias (1141-1151); selected liturgical chants
Hilma of Klint, ‘Paintings for the Future’ (Guggenheim, 2023)
Rosalía, Lux (2025)
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5. Mystical heretics
Meister Eckhart, selected sermons (1294-1298)
Angela of Foligno,The Memorial (1292)
Marguerite Porete,The Mirror of Simple Annihilated Souls (1296-1306)
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6. Reading week
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7. Reason and faith
Aquinas, Summa Theologica (1274), extracts
Dante, Divine Comedy (1308-1321), extracts
Angela Alaimo O'Donnell, Dear Dante (2024)
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8. Gender and mysticism
Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love (1343-1416)
Margery of Kempe, The Book of Margery Kempe (1430s)
Kiki McGrath, ‘The Woman in the House’ (2024)
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9. Mystical close reading
Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises (1522-24)
Gerard Manley Hopkins, 'The Windhover'
Karen An-Hwei Lee, ‘On Lectio Divina, Counterclockwise’ (2016)
Babette's Feast (dir. Gabriel Axel, 1987) [film screening]
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10. Prayer
Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle (1577)
John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul and Spiritual Canticle (1578-1591)
TERM 2
1. Metaphysical mysticism
Richard Crashaw, ‘A Hymn to the Name and Honour of the Admirable St Teresa’,
‘The Flaming Heart’, ‘The Weeper’ (1646; 1652)
John Donne, Holy Sonnets (1633)
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2. Visionary mysticism
William Blake, ‘To Thomas Butts’ (1800)
William Wordsworth, ‘There was a boy’ (1798)
Michael Field, Whym Chow Flame of Love (1914)
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3. ‘Mysterious existences’
Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet (1903-1908)
Duino Elegies (1912-22)
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4. Contemplation
Raïssa Maritain, Raïssa's Journal, trans. Jacques Maritain (1964),
Patriarch Tree: Thirty Poems (1965)
Elizabeth Jennings, Every Changing Shape:
Mystical Experience and the Making of Poems (1996); selected poems
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5. Gnostic mysticisms
Evelyn Underhill, Practical Mysticism (1915)
Carl Jung, Seven Sermons to the Dead (1916)
Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching (4th century BCE; Stephen Mitchell’s 1988 translation)
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6. Reading week
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7. ‘All is always now’
T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets (1936-42)
Bhagavad Gita (1st century BCE)
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8. Attention and suffering
Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace (1947)
Howard Thurman, Meditations of the Heart (1953)
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9. ‘I am not a mystic’
Flannery O’Connor, ‘Revelation’, ‘Everything that rises must converge’
‘A Temple of the Holy Ghost’, ‘A Good Man is hard to find’ (1946-64)
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10. Mystical howls
Allen Ginsberg, Howl (1954-55)
Frank Samperi, Lumen Gloriae (1973)
Iris Murdoch, Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals (1992)