Language, Self and Love: Hermeneutics in Richard Rolle and the Commentaries of the Song of Songs

Renevey's dissertation argues that self-analysis and the investigation of self through mystic and religious thought and writings is not a modern trend. He shows how 12th-century commentators, such as William of St Thierry and St Bernard of Clairvaux, used the material of the Song of Songs to experiment with a language of love to express 'their mystical experiences and the discovery of their own selves'. The second part of the study traces the development of this experimentation in the commentaries of Richard Rolle, a 14th-century hermit.