Michel de Certeau and Tereza de Ávila : toward literature and mystical experience

How to think of a mystical experience? Is there any belief in a ‘negative tradition’ that constitutes a literary corpus which can propitiate a specific reading or at least a more restrict one about what we call mystical? Michel de Certeau has already defined it in such way that allow us to penetrate it through literature, specially concerning to narratives writing by women during XVI and XVII centuries. This paper analyses the literary aspects expressed on a mystical experience, based on Michel de Certeau´s works La fable mystique and Mystique au XVII Siecle: le problem du language mystique, and Teresa de Àvila´s poesías líricas and exclamaciones