La Représentation de la montagne dans la littérature anglaise d’inspiration religieuse au XVIIe siècle

Abstract

In all religions throughout the world, the mountain has always been represented as a privileged place, where the divine touches the terrestrial. In many countries or regions there are one or several "sacred mount(s)" where the Godhead is supposed to dwell and towards which one needs to turn oneself in order to find salvation. This is notoriously the case throughout the Bible in both the Ancient and the New Testaments, although some ambivalence can be identified in the symbolic value of the mountain which proves to be either a place of divine revelation or of spiritual contest. The Christian mystics down from Gregory of Nyssa to John of the Cross take this double dimension on board. So do the English metaphysical poets, in particular George Herbert and John Donne, as well as the puritan author of The Pilgrim’s Progress