A Forgotten Figure of Philosophical Theology: Marguerite Porete

Year 2021, Volume: 13 Issue: 1, 155 - 164, 10.06.2021

Eylem Canaslan

https://doi.org/10.46655/federgi.946998

Abstract

The Mirror of Simple Annihilated Souls and Those Who Only Remain in Will and Desire of Love is
regarded as one of the most enigmatic and influential manuscripts in the history of medieval Christian
mysticism. Its author was not known until the mid-twentieth century. In 1946, Romana Guarnieri
identified Marguerite Porete, condemned and burned at the stake for “relapsed heresy” in Paris in
1310, as the author of this book. This paper aims to introduce Marguerite Porete, who is one of the
most interesting forgotten women thinkers in the history of ideas. It will present the major sequences
of her life, recount the rediscovery of The Mirror of Simple Souls by Guarnieri, and focus on its
literary structure and certain philosophical themes it contains or implies. These selected themes are as
follows: the subversion of the distinction between the learned and the ignorant, the opposition
between Reason and Love, a naturalism beyond ascetism, a call for the constitution of a new
subjectivity “beyond good and evil” and a concept of annihilation that denies the existence of free
will.

Keywords

Marguerite Porete, The Mirror of Simple Souls, Romana Guarnieri

References

• Atherton, Margaret (ed.). Women Philosophers of the Early Modem Period (Indianapolis ve Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 1994).
• Behnke, Carolyn Goodwin. “‘Introduction’, The Mirror of Simple and Annihilated Souls: A translation from the French” (Doktora tezi, University of Cincinnati, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 1996).
• Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Auto-da-fé,” Encyclopedia Britannica, 14 Temmuz 2014, https://www.britannica.com/topic/auto-da-fe. ...