Gloria Maité Hernández – författare

Savoring God is a comparative study that examines the creative interaction of poetry and theology in two mystical poems central to the Christian and the Hindu traditions, the sixteenth-century Spanish Cántico espiritual (Spiritual Canticle), by Saint John of the Cross, and the Sanskrit Rāsa Līlā (Dance of Love), which originated in the oral tradition. Alongside the poems, Gloria Maité Hernández examines theological commentaries on the texts: the Comentarios, written by Saint John of the Cross on his own poem, and the foundational commentary on the Rāsa Līlā by Śrīdhara Svāmi as well as commentaries by the sixteenth-century theologian Jīva Gosvāmi, from the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava school, and other Gauḍīya theologians.The phrase "savoring God" conveys the Spanish gustar a Dios (to savor God) and the Sanskrit madhura bhakti rasa (the sweet savor of divine love). In the Christian and Hindu commentaries these two concepts describe a way of approaching the poems that is simultaneously vulnerable to the emotions evoked by the poetical imagery and responsive to its theological demands. While "savoring" does not mean the precisely the same thing to the Christian and the Hindu theologians, Hernández demonstrates that both traditions interpret the term to suggest poetry's power in mediating an encounter with the divine.

Gloria Maite Hernandez offers an engaging critical review of scholarly works on Spanish mystical literature during the twentieth and early twenty-first century in Europe and the Americas. Bringing together for the first time an ample variety of sources, and letting the scholars' own voices be heard, this study asks how their writings were influenced by their particular notions about mysticism and Spain's relationship with the Orient. A thematic survey like this one illustrates how ideas are created and re-created throughout time, resulting in the production of a more diverse scholarship. Readers will be enriched with a renewed sense of disciplinary awareness.