SOURCE: Leclercq, Jean. “Epilogue: Literature and the Mystical Life.” In The Love of Learning and the Desire for God: A Study of Monastic Culture, translated by Catharine Misrahi, pp. 309-29. 1974. Reprint. London: SPCK, 1978.

In the following essay, originally published in French in 1957, Leclercq discusses how spiritual experience transforms literature.

Protestations of modesty at the beginning of a work and the offering in conclusion, of excuses for its shortcomings, were once popular literary themes. But, even today, without any literary implication, any exposé which deals with a long cultural period must, of necessity, be submitted as provisional and incomplete; its lacunae are all too evident. This work, then will be in keeping with its nature as an “essay,” if it is brought to a close with the formulation of the two major problems which arise from the findings presented in the preceding pages. One is concerned with history; the...