The Stanzas
8 stanzas
The poem entire, printed before the commentary as John arranged it.
Volume Four of Five
The Dark Night of the Soul
A poem of eight stanzas, and a commentary that never finishes explaining them. John describes a purification in which the familiar supports of prayer are withdrawn.
Saint John of the Cross, 1542–1591 · translated by David Lewis · Thomas Baker, London, 1908
39Chapters
42,400Words by the author
137Explanatory panels
251Typeset pages
Choose this volume when prayer has gone flat and you want to know what the tradition says about that — carefully, and with the distinctions the phrase has lost.
What it asks of you: Reading the cautions. This book is the most misapplied of the five. · Difficulty: Difficult; symbolic language throughout
Where readers get stuck
The Dark Night of the Soul, and what it asks of you
The phrase has escaped the book. It now names any bad stretch, and readers bring that meaning back to a text that means something far more particular — and far more dangerous to misapply.
What this edition adds
- ▪The night of sense and the night of the spirit kept apart, and active purification distinguished from passive.
- ▪The three signs John himself gives for telling spiritual dryness from lukewarmness or illness, set out where he gives them.
- ▪A firm and repeated caution against reading depression, anxiety, grief or burnout as the dark night. Psychological suffering asks for proper care, and no classic substitutes for it.
- ▪The poem printed whole, with each stanza set beside the chapters that comment on it, so the commentary stops feeling unmoored.
The shape of the work
A poem and two books · 39 chapters
Book One
14 chapters
The night of sense: the imperfections of beginners, and the signs that the night has begun.
Book Two
25 chapters
The night of the spirit: the ten degrees of the ladder of love, and what the darkness accomplishes.
The whole work, with a guide at your side
All 39 chapters, unabridged, in 251 typeset pages. Read it straight through or study it a chapter at a time.
Volume Four of Five
The Dark Night of the Soul
Saint John of the Cross · A poem and two books · 39 chapters
$27USD
One payment. Yours to keep.
- The complete work in the David Lewis translation — all 39 chapters, nothing abridged, nothing rewritten.
- 137 explanatory panels, placed only where the text is genuinely difficult. Whole chapters go by without one.
- Opening apparatus: a note on the edition, a guide to reading it, an introduction to the author and the work, and a map of the argument.
- Summaries and study questions at the close of every part, each question pointing back to a named chapter.
- A glossary defining terms in the sense the author gives them, not the dictionary’s.
- A thematic index whose every reference was opened and checked before it was printed.
- 251 typeset pages at 170 × 240 mm, with clickable contents and internal links.
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The historical translation is in the public domain. What you are paying for is the edition built around it: the explanations, the apparatus and the typesetting.
Reading more than one? The complete collection of five volumes is $97 — a saving of $38.