A major devotional work by one of the greatest Christian mystics and Spanish poets

A Penguin Classic

The poetry of the sixteenth-century Spanish mystic John of the Cross has inspired and consoled for hundreds of years, influencing writers such as James Joyce, T. S. Eliot, and Seamus Heaney. This new edition of his essential works, in a sensitive and luminous translation by Martha Sprackland, gathers John of the Cross’s complete poems and a selection of his prose, including from his extended commentary on the poem “Dark Night.” In his immediate, sensual writing, there is a soul searching for meaning and union with the divine: both meek and bold, deserving and unworthy, oscillating between light and dark, soaring and falling, desperation and salvation. Dark Night provides a picture of faith at once confronting and inspiriting, and of the power of words as a means of spiritual transcendence.

Penguin Classics is the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world, representing a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.