Doing Time in the Spiritual Cell: A New Look at the London Charterhouse Verses

This article explores experiences of time in the solitary, spiritual cell. While it considers the lives and texts of cell-dwellers more broadly, its discussion focuses on inhabitants of the London Charterhouse via a set of Latin verses displayed in the charterhouse and their interpretation by a one-time resident, John Blacman (d. 1485). The analysis of these Carthusian texts—especially their relationship to the “nowness” of the “lyric present”—suggests that time was a sharply contoured and pressing affective issue for solitaries, and one which needed to be confronted and managed within the confines of the cell in order for spiritual flourishing to be possible.