<Tr> <Td> <Ul> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> </Ul> </Td> </Tr> <Ul> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> </Ul> <P> Dark Night of the Soul (Spanish: La noche oscura del alma) is a poem written by the 16th - century Spanish mystic and poet St. John of the Cross . The author himself did not give any title to his poem, on which he wrote two book - length commentaries: Ascent of Mount Carmel (Subida del Monte Carmelo) and The Dark Night (Noche Oscura). </P> <P> The poem of St. John of the Cross, in 8 stanzas of 5 lines each, narrates the journey of the soul to mystical union with God . The journey is called "The Dark Night" in part because darkness represents the fact that the destination, God, is unknowable, as in the 14th century, mystical classic The Cloud of Unknowing, which, like St. John's poem, derives from the works of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite in the sixth century . Further, the path per se is unknowable . The first verse of the poem is translated: </P>

Who coined the term dark night of the soul