SOURCE: Hollywood, Amy. “The Problem of the Text: Marguerite Porete's The Mirror of Simple Souls.” In The Soul as Virgin Wife: Mechthild of Magdeburg, Marguerite Porete, and Meister Eckhart, pp. 87-119. South Bend, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995.

In the following excerpt, Hollywood considers the ambiguous status of Porete's The Mirror of Simple Souls as medieval allegory, tracing its representation of the stages of the soul's union with God and comparing the work with Mechthild of Magdeburg's The Flowering Light of the Godhead.

The Text as Mirror and as Allegory

The recurring ambiguities of Marguerite Porete's work, The Mirror of Simple and Annihilated Souls and Those Who Remain Only in Will and Desire of Love¹ are in evidence already in this long title, for it is not immediately clear whether the genitive article is objective or possessive. In other words, does the text promise to give a...