En estrange païs: The nostalgia of Ideal in Marguerite Porete’s work

In her Mirror of Simple Souls, Marguerite Porete († 1310) aims at paving the way for the annihilated soul to find its ideal self back in the mystical union with God. However, by doing so, she also draws on the feeling of nostalgia by heralding the discrepancy between the usual state of the soul, where it stands forlorn and bereft of the source of its longing, and its state of fulfillment where words are no longer relevant. Hence the Mirror as a speculative tractate builds on a rich literary imagery – images of mountains and valleys, of sea and rivers and sunshine, depicting a country of life vs one of estrangement, as well as a sense of lost time that cannot be recovered – to embark its readers on a spiritual journey while making them aware of the shortcomings of ordinary language.

In her Mirror of Simple Souls, Marguerite Porete († 1310) aims at paving the way for the annihilated soul to find its ideal self back in the mystical union with God. However, by doing so, she also draws on the feeling of nostalgia by heralding the discrepancy between the usual state of the soul, where it stands forlorn and bereft of the source of its longing, and its state of fulfillment where words are no longer relevant. Hence the Mirror as a speculative tractate builds on a rich literary imagery – images of mountains and valleys, of sea and rivers and sunshine, depicting a country of life vs one of estrangement, as well as a sense of lost time that cannot be recovered – to embark its readers on a spiritual journey while making them aware of the shortcomings of ordinary language.