Desire for the Absent. The Dynamics of Love and Desire in the Thought of Beatrice of Nazareth and Richard of St. Victor
Abstract
The article focuses on three aspects of the mystical experience: first, I want to show that some medieval authors – Richard of St. Victor, Beatrice of Nazareth and others – shifted their focus from the satisfaction of the desire for God to the analysis of desire as such. Secondly, they allowed for the possibility that spiritual experience could manifest itself in the body and could be experienced sensually and corporeally. And thirdly, they noticed that the desire for love was often accompanied by suffering and pain. The absence of an object, unsatisfied desire, corporeality and elements of suffering are interconnected in such a way that they all constitute aspects of affective experience. All three constitute the aspects of a mystical experience: desire is associated with the absence of an object, the bodily experience of desire often takes the form of physical pain and suffering.
The characteristics of the three aspects – the absence of the object of desire, the role of corporeality and the presence of suffering in love desire – will be presented in the next three parts of this article.
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