Research centre Ruusbroec Institute

Marguerite Porete

Writing into annihilation. The performative power of Le Miroir des simples âmes anéanties of Marguerite Porete as mystatogic tool (2007-2012)

The project aims to gain insight into the performative power (agency) of Marguerite Porete’s (†1310) mystical text Le Miroir des simples âmes anéanties, which was condemned as heretical by the Inquisition. Three research questions inform the analysis of the text: the representation of the ‘I’, the intertextual network, and the rhetorical dynamic of the composition. The analytic tools employed include, on the one hand, contemporary discourse analysis (Bakhtin, Certeau), and on the other, medieval rhetoric. This study will contribute to a better understanding of the ‘heterodoxy’ of the literary tools employed by late-medieval vernacular mystical authors.

  • Project: 2007 – 2012
  • Imke de Gier
  • Supervisor: Veerle Fraeters
  • Funded by: BOF/NOI 2007
  • Publications:
    • Imke de Gier, Ce livre monstrera a tous vraye lumiere de verité : Marguerite Porete's Le Mirouer des simples ames as a mystatogic text, Antwerpen: Universiteit Antwerpen, 2013. (Doctoral dissertation)
    • Imke de Gier & Veerle Fraeters , 'Allegory and mystagogy in 'The mirouer' of Marguerite Porete«', in: Ons geestelijk erf (2015), pp. 3-23
    • Imke de Gier, 'Text as Authority. Marguerite Porete’s Mirouer des simples ames', in Imke de Gier & Veerle Fraeters (ed.), Mulieres religiosae. Shaping Female Spiritual Authority, Turnhout: Brepols, 2014, pp. 79-93. 
    • Imke de Gier, 'The transforming power of words : approaching Porete's Le miroir des simples ames anienties as a mystagogic text', in: Frans Hendrickx & Kees Schepers (eds), De letter levend maken : opstellen aangeboden aan Guido de Baere bij zijn zeventigste verjaardag. Leuven: Peeters, 2010

Marguerite Porete's influence in England

This is research into the Middle English translation of Marguerite Porete’s Mirouer des simples âmes, and an examination of Marguerite’s possible influence in England, questioning the generally accepted idea that English devotional and contemplative writings are more cautious than their continental counterparts.