The Phoenix of Rennes: The Life and Poetry of John of St. Samson 1571-1636 (review)

240 Reviews 'fascinating details about a subsequent performance of Comus in April 1637 in the Clifford household at Skipton, Yorkshire' (pp. 396; 485) forthcoming in a projected R E E D volume for the West Riding of Yorkshire (eds. John Wasson and Barbara Palmer). As a long-time user of R E E D publications, I have noted with pleasure the continued enhancements to the indexing methods and the presentation of expanded notes and additional material in the 'Editorial Apparatus'. M y only difficulty is in the reading of maps and illustrations included in this and other volumes. I appreciate the sentiment behind the faithful reproduction of such early material, but it can sometimes be baffling. In Shropshire, the reproduction showing the site of the Shrewsbury quarry-theatre (p. 389) is not sufficiently clear for the exact location to be recognised instantly, and the maps (pp. 494-95; 498) are difficult to read. The meticulous editing and clear presentation of the written records that provide us with otherwise inaccessible and no doubt often illegible material might well serve as a model for a revised approach to the maps and illustrations in the R E E D series. In 1996, a twelfth R E E D publication for the county of Somerset (ed. James Stokes) has been produced, and devotees of the series will look forward to the ongoing work of the dedicated individual R E E D researchers and the highly skilled editorial team in Toronto. In the meantime, Shropshire and the other published volumes, with David Galloway's Norwich, sadly out of print, are a must for every theatre and cultural historian's library. Margaret Rogerson Department of English University of Sydney Stefanotti, Robert, The Phoenix ofRennes: The Life and Poetry of John of St. Samson 1571-1636 (Medieval and Early M o d e m Mysticism 2), 1994; N e w York, Peter Lang; board; pp. ix, 201; R.R.P. US$43.90. Stefanotti's pioneering English-language study of the early seventeenth century mystic, John of St. Samson, is welcome indeed. The blind Carmelite has long been regarded as the 'French John of the Cross', but is little known outside France, and the substantial body of poetry he left is rarely studied even there. Nearly four thousand manuscript pages of John's dictations survive, despite the brutal suppression of over one hundred Carmelite monasteries during the Reign of Terror in 1792. Interest in John revived in Reviews 241 the late nineteenth century and has grown steadily throughout this century, with major scholarly works in French and Dutch appearing. Stefanotti's study is thefirstto combine biographical material with an evaluation of the poetry, both as poetry and in terms of the mystical insights contained. Considered the spiritual fount of the Reform of Touraine, a Carmelite movement inaugurated in 1608, John of St. Samson was b o m John Moulin in Sens in 1571. His childhood was dominated by the instability of the Wars of Religion and a series of personal misfortunes. H e became blind at three, and was orphaned at ten, living the next sixteen years in the house of his uncle Zacherie d'Aiz. There he learned to play nine instruments (stringed, keyboard, and woodwind), and 'is known to have said that there was never a stringed instrument that he couldn't learn to play in less than a quarter of an hour' (p. 18). This musical ability enabled him to earn a living as a church organist. At 26 John moved to Paris with his brother John Baptiste, but his brother died in 1601, and John entered Place Maubert, the Carmelite Studium Generale. H e became a monk in 1606 and went to community at Dol-deBretagne , dedicated to St. Samson, w h o m John took as a patron. In 1612 he made his second novitiate, as did all reformed Carmelites, and entered the community at Rennes, where he lived out the remainder of his life. His mystical spirituality had developed throughout his life, but the poems he is now famous for began in 1615, and were written down by scribes. The commonest form is that of the canticle, and the themes are...