"In a valey of pis restles mynde": Contexts and Meaning

Abstract

Middle English religious lyrics as rule prefer treating didactic and devotional themes to the more esoteric ideas associated with mysticism. The lyrics of Richard Rolle are perhaps exceptions, but even these present the theme of mystical union primarily as an elaboration of devotional meditations on the Passion or the Holy Name rather than describing the actual stages of contemplation. The anonymous lyric which begins In valey of 1is restles mynde appears to be notable exception to the rule.' Though the evocative power of the imagery has often been praised, the consensus of critical opinion was that the poem did not easily support rational analysis, until James I. Wimsatt argued that it uses imagery from The Canticle of Canticles in such way as to describe a fully developed mystical experience.2 Such images as the dove's nest of refuge, the garden of ripe fruits, the marriage chamber, and the couch are, as he demonstrates, those extensively developed as allegories of the mystical union between the Bridegroom (Christ) and the Bride (the Soul or, collectively, the Church) by the commentators on Canticles, particularly Saint Bernard of Clairvaux in his Sermones in cantica canticorum. Wimsatt finds comparable treatments of this theme in two Latin poems, one the well-known Jesu dulcis memoria, but apparently none in English, and this again may suggest the unusual nature of the poem. The significant use of imagery from Canticles locates the poem clearly in the broad and complex tradition of mystical writing. Less clear, however, is the exact nature of the experience being described. The terminology and imagery of mysticism, though shared by many writers, were nevertheless shaped into the expression of distinctive attitudes. While it would be wrong to argue the absence of any rationale for the imagery in the poem, thoroughgoing schematic reading ignores features of the text which are themselves related to trends in fourteenth-century English mysticism. The imagery from Canticles makes up less than half the poem and is used, where it does occur, in characteristically affective way. By examining its use, and by placing it in the context of contemporary writings which have as their subject the contemplative life, we may be able to reach more precise definition of this difficult poem's meaning. Undoubtedly the dominant feature of the text is the line from Canticles with which each stanza ends, the expression of intense desire spoken by Christ: quia amore langueo. The most important commentary on this line was that of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, not in his Sermones but in an earlier treatise, De diligendo Deo. This treatise must have been well known in its author's time since he refers to