El símbolo como medio de conceptualización en el lenguaje místico de San Juan de la Cruz.

Abstract

The article deals with theproblem of symbolism in te works of Saint John of the Cross aud suggests an approach to this complex phenomenon, which involves the revision of traditional concepts for interpretation of the great mystic's texs. The main point is that the modera conception of symbol, easily adopted for analysis of the mystical works, overlooks the specific cultural backgrounds of the St. John's exegeticexperiments. Meanwhile, the «metaphoric structures that admit virtually infinite semantie 139 Marina 1'. Ossipova El símbolo como medio de conceptualización... expansion» in St. John's texts (e.g. dark nigh of the soul) appear to be modeled on traditional theological proceedings like the analogy theory of St. Thomas of Aquinas and the negative theology ofthe Names of God in the treatises of the Corpus Areopagiticum. In such contextual perspective, te interpretation of the famous metaphor, lexically unstable tmd ambivalent, served as an admonishment to the reader not to take the exegesisof the symbol as a valid definition for the designated mystic phenomenon, whose true location is the holy darkness of the inscrutable Divinity.