San Juan de la Cruz and the act of narrating in times of agoraphobia

Abstract

Based on Michael Jackson's theory in his book The Politics of Storytelling, and the distinction between the public and the private sphere of Hannah Arendt, this work analyzes the act of narration and its existential implication in John of the Cross during his capture, stay, and prison escape in Medina del Campo and Toledo. This analysis is intended to demonstrate how in times of "Agoraphobia", like the Spain of the sixteenth century, the act of narrating becomes a strategy of survival that seeks to create a balance between the public and the private, and the experience of John in prison is a perfect example of this.