Overview

This book presents the first-ever English translation of the Prison Narratives written by the seventeenth-century French mystic and Quietist, Jeanne Guyon (1648-1717). Although she was marginalized and ignored by French historians for two centuries after her death, Guyon became a major figure in the development of transatlantic Protestant spirituality in the eighteenth century, and her writings have remained popular among English-speaking audiences. Guyon's narrative describes her confinement between 1695 and 1703 in various prisons, including the dreaded Bastille. It also maps, in moving and unforgettable detail, the political and religious hegemony that sought to destroy her reputation and erase her from history. Although she published an autobiography in 1720, Guyon kept the part that described her experience in prison private and the text remained undiscovered for almost three centuries - until an archival version was found and published in 1992 under the title Récits de Captivité (Prison Narratives). Mourad and Guenin-Lelle provide here not only a translation of the full Narratives but a thorough introduction, including a brief biography of Guyon, an analysis of the Quietist Affair (the religious and political conflict responsible for her persecution), and a summary of the key historical, literary, and theological aspects of Guyon's prison writings. The introduction represents the most detailed examination of the Prison Narratives presently available in either English or French.

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9780199841127

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The aristocratic French mystic Madame Guyon exercised remarkable influence among both Catholics and Protestants, not simply in her lifetime (1648-1717) but throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The recent discovery of her 'prison narratives' has opened a new window into Guyon's life, and this lucid introduction and English translation by Mourad and Guenin-Lelle beautifully present a vivid narrative from one of the pivotal figures of modern Christian spirituality. -- W. Clark Gilpin, Margaret E. Burton Professor, Emeritus, The University of Chicago The author of the most famously abundant mystic writing of the seventeenth century here defends herself with elegant precision against the charges leveled by the most powerful men, lay and religious, of Louis XIV's monarchy. Not precisely a mystic text, the Prison Narratives are an extraordinary document of resistance, as well as moving testimony to the threat Guyon's message of spiritual autonomy posed to the hardening institutional structures of her day. -- Nicholas D. Paige, author of Being Interior: Autobiography and the Contradictions of Modernity in Seventeenth-Century France

<br> The aristocratic French mystic Madame Guyon exercised remarkable influence among both Catholics and Protestants, not simply in her lifetime (1648-1717) but throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The recent discovery of her 'prison narratives' has opened a new window into Guyon's life, and this lucid introduction and English translation by Mourad and Guenin-Lelle beautifully present a vivid narrative from one of the pivotal figures of modern Christian spirituality. <br>-- W. Clark Gilpin, Margaret E. Burton Professor, Emeritus, The University of Chicago <br><p><br> The author of the most famously abundant mystic writing of the seventeenth century here defends herself with elegant precision against the charges leveled by the most powerful men, lay and religious, of Louis XIV's monarchy. Not precisely a mystic text, the Prison Narratives are an extraordinary document of resistance, as well as moving testimony to the threat Guyon's message of spiritual autonomy posed to the hardening institutional structures of her day. <br>-- Nicholas D. Paige, author of Being Interior: Autobiography and the Contradictions of Modernity in Seventeenth-Century France<br><p><br>

Author Information

Ronney Mourad serves as associate professor of Religious Studies at Albion College in Albion, Michigan. He holds a B.A. in Religious Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the Divinity School of the University of Chicago. He writes about the philosophy of religion and philosophical theology with particular interest in religious experience, epistemology, and faith. Dianne Guenin-Lelle received her Ph.D. from Louisiana State University in French and is a professor of French at Albion College. She is a specialist in seventeenth-century narrative and has published on the French Comic Novel and on Jeanne Guyon, as well as francophone Louisiana and multicultural pedagogy.

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