Publisher's Synopsis
The essays assembled in The Mystical Gesture examine spiritual culture as disseminated by texts and writers across Western Europe from the 13th to 17th centuries, with a primary focus on 16th-century Spain. How poetry or drama intersected with devotion and mysticism, how rhetoric served spirituality, and how conceptions of gender were shaped by-and in turn helped to shape- spiritual culture are themes that these essays explore and illuminate. The contributors to this volume examine the writings of visionaries, mystics, nuns who were poets or scholars, and creative writers whose work centered on spiritual themes. -
