The sensual human nature: a cognitive approach to religious poetry

Abstract

Sensual experience has traditionally been admitted into religion as a means to convey mystic encounters with divinities. Even the strict Christian dogma gives its consent to the expression of sensual encounters, provided that they can be justified from a religious moral perspective. But the fact is that the use of sensual imagery with a communicative intention seems to have an experientialist base:Any kind of knowledge we have originates from our phenomenological apprehension of the world; and appealing to the motor-sensory domains seems to be the easiest and quickest way to guarantee understanding. Following a cognitive orientation, this paper explores into two samples of religious poetry (San Juan de la Cruz's "Noche Oscura" and G. Herbert's "Love") and shows evidence that meaning conveyance is possible thanks to the use of motor -sensory imagery, which at the same time allows for other more universal readings of the poems.