The Unknowability and Imagination in Mystical Doctrines of the Late Medieval English Mysticism
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
1. As not all readers of the journal "Religions" are familiar with the three late medieval English mystics, it might be helpful to situate them briefly (also situate them with regard to each other)
2. The article does not develop extensively the distinction between images (and the working of the imagination) at the initiative of the human subject, on the one hand, and images as they come into being by the initiative of God revealing himself to the human subject on the other hand. Mystical literature does make this distinction often, though. Is this not an important issue in these three authors?
Author Response
I've added a few comments on the current discussion of the English authors you mentioned, though it probably wasn't quite the introduction you had in mind. The second question is important. Richard seems to be the only one to answer that it is not from his soul. By contrast, the author of The Cloud may have in mind only images that the soul itself creates; unlike Richard, he probably doesn't think they can be granted. So these are only my speculations about this question, but I find it hard to find a complete and clear answer. In any case, it broadens the horizons of further investigation since the authors probably differ on this.
Reviewer 2 Report
This is interesting work that needs substantial revision. The main issues are 1) textual 2) critical.
- I find the argument that imagination plays a complex role in each of the primary authors to be fine, but hardly novel. Rolle is a nuanced and beguiling writer, and to pair him with Hilton and the Cloud author is perfectly feasible. However, the role of imagination in Hilton and the Cloud has been extensively dealt with by Alistair Minnis (nor referenced in this essay), and requires engagement with more than simply Augustine and Thomas Aquinas (who, it must be said, is only really influential in the centuries after his death; more pertinent would be the theology of Bonaventure). Each text deals with the role of imagination in key ways, and links that to the threefold lectio, meditatio, oratio (and of course contemplatio) within specific parameters. The author’s characterisation of Rolle’s engagement with this is the least convincing: Rolle’s letters to Margaret clearly indicate that he sees his own meditations as something other, and offers instead a sort of biblical parsing of the Latin sources for the less capable novice reader. I would expect to see lectio (or lukyginge in the Middle English) explored a bit more when it comes to Rolle. The work on Hilton is fine, and the author shows care and attention to his work. However the passages on the Cloud are very unsatisfying: the Cloud’s use of language is complex, and while metaphors are important, there are a lot of other nuances to the text’s prayer advice. What of the seed-syllable prayer advice, or the crucial reference to the two ways of knowing in the text (by intellect/understanding, and by love). This text is full of complex psychological terms - loving might and knowing might - none of which are mentioned here. Metaphor, as a gestural language form, surely plays a role in the text’s advocated praxis of a move from meditation to contemplation. This is all about a poetic of effacement, of a gradual letting go of the imagistic and provisional into something beyond - contemplative cognition if you will. Yet the author doesn’t engage with the text’s ideal of natural cognition: remember that the middle English ‘kynde’ has the meaning of “natural” in this text, and so the Cloud’s mention of “kynde wit” and working against it/with it, would be of immediate relevance to this essay. Indeed, mention of it would massive improve its analytical depth and rigour.
- There is a wealth of secondary criticism that simply isn’t mentioned. Essays by Vincent Gillespie, Alistair Minnis, Rene Tixer, and others are not mentioned or citied. Nor are important monographs by Michelle Karens and Jennifer Bryan. Even the most cursory consultation of these works would provide much firmer grounding for the essays assertions.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Very good, save a few typos I caught. See attached file
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
See attached.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
See attached.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
You at least read my comments, and those of the other reviewers. However, your rather petulant responses leave much to be desired. You are aware that it is not custom nor practice to offer a meta-commentary on the reviewer reports? Your comments are frankly out of order: the reviewers make suggestions in good faith, and it is ungracious in the extreme to try and refute them. I am not convinced by the scholarly rigour of this piece at all, and your supposed retort to the generous suggestions of the reviewers - made freely by us to help you improve and not to castigate or cajole - make me think that you have no desire to seriously engage with constructive criticism.
You need to be careful with the definite article - I know this is tough and tedious, but that's why it's called work.
Author Response
I am following the instructions (proof attached).
The actual changes are in the article. It includes comments from the attached file. Overall, the text has undergone many changes (emphasis added). Since there is nothing in the reply related to the text or my answers, I am not attaching any further comments.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The author has responded to the advice incorporated in the review. Errors in spelling and grammar have been corrected, and the use of articles is more consistent. S/he has also included more references to secondary criticism in the footnotes, as recommended by the reviewers, and rephrased vague or blanket statements. While it would be nice to see closer engagement with the language of the primary texts, such as analyses of the specific imagery used by the paradoxically imagery-negative Cloud author or the vocabulary used to define or articulate 'feeling' and 'imagination' in the three Middle English texts and their Latin sources, the paper as it stands is much improved.
Author Response
Thank you for your comments.
