关键词: 圣十字若望, 神秘主义, 不可言说

Abstract: This paper focuses on San Juan de la Cruz (Saint John of the Cross, 1542-1591), the canonical poet of the Spanish Golden Age and one of the most outstanding figures in the world history of mysticism. Ineffability, the core characteristics of mystical experience and mysticism in general, is frequently affirmed by San Juan de la Cruz in his writing. However, the Carmelite saint-poet, rather than sealing his mouth, engages in lyrical utterances and indulges in ravishing verbal beauty, to which the canonization of his works would attribute. By leveraging the cross-cultural perspective of “the eternal Tao” and “the indeterminate language” in Chinese classics, this study attempts to investigate San Juan de la Cruz's enterprise of speaking the unspeakable, an enterprise premised upon the dynamic interaction of language and silence, and constructed through literary devices of paradox, periphrasis, ambiguity, and absurdness.

Key words: San Juan de la Cruz, mysticism, ineffability