The Sweet Secrets of the Bedchamber: Veiling and unveiling in Bernard of Clairvaux’s Sermons on the Song of Songs

Abstract

Abstract:
Images of enclosed and inaccessible spaces, serving as locations for secret amorous encounters between the soul-bride and the divine bridegroom, recur throughout Bernard of Clairvaux’s Sermons on the Song of Songs. Perhaps the most striking of these images is that of the bed chamber (cubiculum), which is laid bare in detail in Sermon 23. What are the secrets of the bedchamber? Why are they secret? This paper explores embedded meanings in the notions of secrecy and spatial intimacy, arguing that Bernard, speaking «in our words» to express «wisdom hidden in mystery» (Sermon 74), uses secrecy as a rhetorical strategy to both establish and to breach the boundaries between the spiritual and the literal meaning of the eroticism in the Song of Songs.
Key words: Mysticism; hermeneutics; monasticism; rhetoric and literary style.
Medieval Authors: Bernard of Clairvaux.