An Artistry of Body and Word:

Contemplative Practice in Richard Rolle and The Cloud of Unknowing

Glenn Young

University of Missouri-Kansas City

gay559@umkc.edu

Paper Abstract for the 41st International Congress on Medieval Studies

Worldwide Universities Network (WUN): The Arts of Meditation

The scholar of mysticism Evelyn Underhill has written that “contemplation is the mystic’s medium.” This statement suggests a comparison which might be drawn between the activities of the mystic and the artist. In this paper, I will discuss contemplative practice as this is addressed by the fourteenth-century English mystical writers Richard Rolle and the anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing. Specifically, I will suggest that Rolle and the Cloud author teach methods of meditation which can be interpreted in terms of artistic activity.

For this discussion, I will consider artistic activity as including three components: (1) a bodily dimension, (2) a quality of performance in which some action is done, and (3) the production of something as a result of this activity.

Both Rolle and the Cloud author suggest that there is a bodily aspect to the meditative practices they teach. This can be seen in their descriptions of the contemplative as one who assumes a sitting posture in contemplation. This posture functions as an emblem of mystical consciousness and as a means with which the contemplative withdraws attention from the world and focuses it upon the Divine presence. Similarly, both authors teach a form of meditative practice in which the practitioner repeats a verbal formula consisting of a single word as a method of performing contemplative prayer. This performance in which one employs a word also functions as a means of directing the mystic’s awareness toward God.

With regard to the component of artistic production, Rolle and the Cloud author do not claim that any material objects issue from contemplation. However, they do suggest that the practices they teach have results. For Rolle, this practice can end in a mystical experience, which he describes in decidedly physical language as an experience of heat, song, and sweetness. While the Cloud author warns against interpreting the practice of contemplation in material terms, he does suggest that this practice can result in a state of mystical consciousness.

In this paper, I will attempt to contribute to a discussion of the arts of meditation by suggesting that meditation can be related to art even when it does not use or produce an artistic object which is external to the meditator. Contemplative practice as it is addressed by Richard Rolle and the Cloud author can itself be considered as a form of artistic activity, in the sense that this practice includes these components of the body, performance in its employment of a verbal formula, and the production of mystical experience.