Thomas Traherne And Seventeenth Century Thought

Author : Elizabeth S. Dodd,Cassandra Gorman
Publisher : Boydell & Brewer
Page : 245 pages
File Size : 41,9 Mb
Release : 2016
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781843844242

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Thomas Traherne and Seventeenth-century Thought by Elizabeth S. Dodd,Cassandra Gorman Pdf

Thomas Traherne has all too often been defined and studied as a solitary thinker, "out of his time", and not as a participant in the complex intellectual currents of the period. The essays collected here take issue with this reading, placing Traherne firmly in his historical context and situating his work within broader issues in seventeenth-century studies and the history of ideas. They draw on recently published textual discoveries alongside manuscripts which will soon be published for the first time. They address major themes in Traherne studies, including Traherne's understanding of matter and spirit, his attitude towards happiness and holiness, his response to solitude and society, and his Anglican identity. As a whole, the volume aims to re-ignite discussion on settled readings of Traherne's work, to reconsider issues in Traherne scholarship which have long lain dormant, and to supplement our picture of the man and his writings through new discoveries and insights. Elizabeth S. Dodd is programme leader for the MA in theology, ministry and mission and lecturer in theology, imagination and culture at Sarum College, Salisbury; Cassandra Gorman is lecturer in English at Trinity College, Cambridge. Contributors: Jacob Blevins, Warren Chernaik, Phoebe Dickerson, Elizabeth S. Dodd, Ana Elena Gonz lez-Trevi o, Cassandra Gorman, Carol Ann Johnston, Alison Kershaw, Kathryn Murphy

Author : Elizabeth S. Dodd
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 255 pages
File Size : 47,8 Mb
Release : 2016-03-16
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781317172932

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Boundless Innocence in Thomas Traherne's Poetic Theology by Elizabeth S. Dodd Pdf

The seventeenth-century poet and divine Thomas Traherne finds innocence in every stage of existence. He finds it in the chaos at the origins of creation as well as in the blessed order of Eden. He finds it in the activities of grace and the hope of glory, but also in the trials of misery and even in the abyss of the Fall. Boundless Innocence in Thomas Traherne’s Poetic Theology traces innocence through Traherne’s works as it transgresses the boundaries of the estates of the soul. Using grammatical and literary categories it explores various aspects of his poetic theology of innocence, uncovering the boundless desire which is embodied in the yearning cry: ’Were all Men Wise and Innocent...’ Recovering and reinterpreting a key but increasingly neglected theme in Traherne’s poetic theology, this book addresses fundamental misconceptions of the meaning of innocence in his work. Through a contextual and theological approach, it indicates the unexplored richness, complexity and diversity of this theme in the history of literature and theology.

Author : Thomas Richard Sluberski
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 256 pages
File Size : 51,7 Mb
Release : 2008
Category : History
ISBN : 0912168242

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A mind in frame : the theological thought of Thomas Traherne (1637-1674) by Thomas Richard Sluberski Pdf

Thomas Traherne (1637?-1674) is the least well-known of the Metaphysical Poets (who include John Donne, Richard Crashaw, and George Herbert). This book is the first complete explication of Traherne's theological thought based on all his known writings.

Author : Richard Willmott
Publisher : Lutterworth Press
Page : 296 pages
File Size : 47,9 Mb
Release : 2021-06-24
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9780718848309

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The Voluble Soul by Richard Willmott Pdf

"The world's fair beauty set my soul on fire." In this first study of the full range of Traherne's poetry Richard Willmott explains his 'metaphysical' poetry to all who are attracted by the beauty of his language, but puzzled by his meaning. He offers guidance both for the student of English, uncertain about Traherne's theological ideas, and the student of theology, put off by seventeenth-century poetic conventions and diction. Using a wealth of quotation, he examines Traherne's verse alongside that of a variety of his contemporaries, including Andrew Marvell, Lucy Hutchinson, Anne Bradstreet and Edward Taylor. Central to Traherne's poetry and generous theology is his delight in the capacity of his soul to approach God through an appreciation of His infinite creation. This soul is 'voluble', not only because it can express its thoughts with fluency, but also because it can enfold within itself the infinity of God's creation, taking in everything that it perceives, considering the latest scientific speculations about the atom and astronomy, but also looking clear-sightedly at Restoration society's materialism and - in one startlingly savage satire - the corruption of the royal court.

Author : Anonim
Publisher : Cambria Press
Page : 248 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 2024-06-29
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 9781621968085

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Thomas Traherne and the Felicities of the Mind by Anonim Pdf

Author : Tessie Prakas
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 253 pages
File Size : 55,9 Mb
Release : 2022-08-25
Category : Christian poetry, English
ISBN : 9780192857125

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Poetic Priesthood in the Seventeenth Century by Tessie Prakas Pdf

Poetic Priesthood reads seventeenth-century devotional verse as staging a surprising competition between poetry and the established church. The work of John Donne, George Herbert, Richard Crashaw, John Milton, and Thomas Traherne suggests that the demands of faith are better understood by poets than by priests--even while four of these authors were also ordained. While recent scholarship has tended to emphasize the shaping influence of the liturgy on the poetry of this period, this book argues that verse instead presents readers with a mode of articulating piety that relies on formal experimentation, and that varies from the forms of the church rather than straightforwardly reproducing them. In crafting this poetic aid to devotion, these authors practiced an alternative and even more ample form of ministry than in their ecclesiastical activities. In the wake of the Reformation, the liturgy of the English church centered on rituals of communal prayer and praise, but the poetry considered in this study suggests that such rituals in fact risk distracting worshippers from the pleasures and challenges of navigating an individual relationship with God. Yet these poets do not make this suggestion by rejecting communal rituals outright. Their verse invokes ecclesiastical practice as a basis for formal innovation that suggests how intimacy with the divine might look, feel, and sound, connecting humans with their God more precisely and more individually than the liturgy can. As they shift between explicit comment on the liturgy and more subtle departures from it in the interplay of verse form and denotation, these authors claim the work of priesthood for poetry.

Author : James J. Balakier
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 237 pages
File Size : 54,7 Mb
Release : 2014-05-14
Category : Consciousness in literature
ISBN : 1624992838

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Thomas Traherne and the Felicities of the Mind by James J. Balakier Pdf

Thomas Traherne (1637-1674) was one of the most original writers of the early modern period. The exciting discovery of his lost manuscripts at the beginning of the twentieth century aroused an intense interest among poetry lovers and scholars of seventeenth-century literature, which has continued to this day. The finding of other challenging Traherne manuscripts over the course of the century has furthered the study of this remarkable "radically optimistic" figure.The most important contribution of this book is to demonstrate that Felicity is not a simplistic or sentimental notion but is grounded in a cognitive experience, which has been the subject of considerable research in recent decades. The book is framed by an introductory chapter that shows Traherne's position in the early modern history of a science of cognition and a concluding chapter that relates his discovery of a holistic state of consciousness to twentieth-century theoretical and experimental developments. The second and third chapters concentrate on what are recognized to be Traherne's core texts on Felicity, the Centuries and the Dobell folio poem sequence. The analysis of these two works uncovers the deep structures of Traherne's thought and sets the stage for the examination of other texts relevant to his foremost subject, Felicity. The fourth chapter investigates the seminal part played by Felicity in other poetry and prose, including Traherne's Felicity-based ethical treatise Christian Ethicks and the encyclopedic Commentaries of Heaven, which combines poetry with prose. Also included in this investigation are poems which, in effect, constitute another sequence--albeit a sequence badly edited by Traherne's brother Philip after Traherne's death. The subsequent chapter explores the presence of Felicity in texts contained in the Lambeth manuscript, discovered at the end of the twentieth century. These texts confirm the intellectual depth and sublime artistry with which Traherne communicated his cognitive breakthrough. Thomas Traherne and the Felicities of the Mind is an important, timely addition to all literature and British cultural collections.

Author : Thomas Traherne
Publisher : Cosimo, Inc.
Page : 362 pages
File Size : 40,7 Mb
Release : 2010-01-01
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781616402921

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Centuries of Meditations by Thomas Traherne Pdf

For more than 200 years, Thomas Traherne's Centuries of Meditations was undiscovered and unpublished. The manuscript passed through many hands before finally being compiled into a book by bookseller and scholar BERTRAM DOBELL (1842-1914) in 1908. Centuries is a collection of poems written to express the rapture of life lived in accordance with God. Yet Dobell is careful to state that even though Traherne was a clergyman, there is plenty of beauty to be found in his poetry that does not require specific belief in Christianity or in God. Readers of many ages and persuasions will be touched by Traherne's passages on love and belonging.

Author : Gladys Irene Wade
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 288 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 1969
Category : Christian poetry, English
ISBN : PSU:000030099722

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Thomas Traherne by Gladys Irene Wade Pdf

Author : Zohar Hadromi-Allouche,Áine Larkin
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 267 pages
File Size : 43,8 Mb
Release : 2016-12-01
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781317136682

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Fall Narratives by Zohar Hadromi-Allouche,Áine Larkin Pdf

Throughout history the motif of ‘the Fall’ has impacted upon our understanding of theology and philosophy and has had an influence on everything from literature to dance. Fall Narratives brings together theologians, historians and artists as well as philosophers and scholars of religion and literature, to explore and reflect on a wide range of concepts of the Fall. Bringing a fresh understanding of the nuanced meanings of the Fall and its various manifestations over time and across space, contributions reflect on the ways in which the Fall can be seen as a transition into absence; how conceptions of the Fall relate to, change, and shape one another; and how the Fall can be seen positively, embracing as it does a narrative of hope.

Author : Cassandra Gorman
Publisher : Boydell & Brewer
Page : 271 pages
File Size : 51,9 Mb
Release : 2021
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781843845935

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The Atom in Seventeenth-century Poetry by Cassandra Gorman Pdf

An investigation into the remarkable "poetics of the atom" in English literary texts from the mid to late seventeenth century. The early modern "atom" - understood as an indivisible particle of matter - captured the poetic imagination in ways that extended far beyond the reception of Lucretius and Epicurean atomism. Contrarily to fears of atomisation and materialist threat, many poets and philosophers of the period sought positive, spiritual motivation in the concept of material indivisibility. This book traces the metaphysical import of these poetic atoms, teasing out an affinity between poetic and atomic forms in seventeenth-century texts. In the writings of Henry More, Thomas Traherne, Margaret Cavendish, Hester Pulter and Lucy Hutchinson, both atoms and poems were instrumental in acts of creating, ordering and reconstructing knowledge. Their poems emerge as exquisitely self-conscious atomic forms, producing intimate reflections on the creative power and indivisibility of self, soul and God. The book begins with a survey of the imaginative possibilities surrounding the early modern "atom", before considering the indivisible centres of the Cambridge Platonist Henry More's cosmic, Spenserian poetics. The focus then turns to the lyrical bond formed between atom and soul in the writings of Thomas Traherne, and from there, to the experimental sequences of Margaret Cavendish and Hester Pulter, whose poetic spaces create new worlds and imagine alternative lives. The book concludes with a study of Lucy Hutchinson's creation poem Order and Disorder, which anticipates the regeneration of fallen being in atomic and alchemical terms.

Author : Richard Willmott
Publisher : Lutterworth Press
Page : 285 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 2021-06-24
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9780718848293

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The Voluble Soul by Richard Willmott Pdf

The "metaphysical" poetry of Thomas Traherne (1636-1674) is less well known than that of his predecessors, John Donne and George Herbert, and can seem daunting both to the student of English, uncertain about his theological ideas, and to the student of theology, put off by seventeenth-century poetic conventions and diction. This book looks at Traherne's verse in its poetic context. Taught from an early age at school to translate Latin and Greek poetry into their own verses, people in many walks of life in the seventeenth century frequently turned to verse to express their own strongest feelings or to put their ideas in a nutshell, thus providing an ideal context in which to get to grips with the poetic expression of Traherne's thought. To be voluble is not only to be fluently expressive, but also have the 'capacity' to comprehend (both understand and include) all of God's creation. Traherne's understanding of the soul and its 'capacity' will be explained. Traherne's delighted comprehension takes in the latest scientific speculation about the atom and astronomy, and also the fascinating details revealed by the microscope, but does not exclude a clear-sighted view of Restoration society's materialism and - in one startlingly savage satire - the corruption of the royal court.

Author : Elizabeth S. Dodd
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 254 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 2016-03-16
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781317172925

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Boundless Innocence in Thomas Traherne's Poetic Theology by Elizabeth S. Dodd Pdf

The seventeenth-century poet and divine Thomas Traherne finds innocence in every stage of existence. He finds it in the chaos at the origins of creation as well as in the blessed order of Eden. He finds it in the activities of grace and the hope of glory, but also in the trials of misery and even in the abyss of the Fall. Boundless Innocence in Thomas Traherne’s Poetic Theology traces innocence through Traherne’s works as it transgresses the boundaries of the estates of the soul. Using grammatical and literary categories it explores various aspects of his poetic theology of innocence, uncovering the boundless desire which is embodied in the yearning cry: ’Were all Men Wise and Innocent...’ Recovering and reinterpreting a key but increasingly neglected theme in Traherne’s poetic theology, this book addresses fundamental misconceptions of the meaning of innocence in his work. Through a contextual and theological approach, it indicates the unexplored richness, complexity and diversity of this theme in the history of literature and theology.

Author : Jacob Blevins
Publisher : Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (ACMRS)
Page : 280 pages
File Size : 47,9 Mb
Release : 2007
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : UOM:39015069034703

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Re-reading Thomas Traherne by Jacob Blevins Pdf

Author : Timothy M. Harrison
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 346 pages
File Size : 55,8 Mb
Release : 2020-10-10
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9780226725260

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Coming To by Timothy M. Harrison Pdf

In Coming To, Timothy M. Harrison uncovers the forgotten role of poetry in the history of the idea of consciousness. Drawing our attention to a sea change in the English seventeenth century, when, over the course of a half century, “conscience” made a sudden shift to “consciousness,” he traces a line that leads from the philosophy of René Descartes to the poetry of John Milton, from the prenatal memories of theologian Thomas Traherne to the unresolved perspective on natality, consciousness, and ethics in the philosophy of John Locke. Each of these figures responded to the first-person perspective by turning to the origins of how human thought began. Taken together, as Harrison shows, this unlikely group of thinkers sheds new light on the emergence of the concept of consciousness and the significance of human natality to central questions in the fields of literature, philosophy, and the history of science.