Poetry of Contemplation: John Donne, George Herbert, Henry Vaughan, and the Modern PeriodState University of New York Press, 1990 M06 1 - 306 pages This is the first systematic and thorough study of mysticism or contemplation in these three seventeenth-century poets and in three modern writers. It not only clarifies the very confused issue of mysticism in seventeenth-century poetry but also connects seventeenth-century poets with modern literature and science through the contemplative tradition; from the Bible and Plato and Church fathers and important mystics of the Middle Ages through Renaissance and modern contemplatives. The transformative and redemptive power of contemplative poetry or "holy writing" (regardless of genre or discipline) is prominent throughout the book, and the relevance, indeed the vital necessity, of such poetry and of the living contemplative tradition to our apocalyptic modern world is discussed in the last chapter. In this chapter, attention is given to modern science, especially to the new physics, and to philosophical and mystical writings of eminent scientists. |
From inside the book
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Page viii
... Poetry , " Studia Mys- tica , 9 ( 1986 ) , 46-59 , and " Meditation and Contemplation in Henry Vaughan : ' The Night , ' " 10 ( 1987 ) , 3–33 . Reprinted by permission of Studia Mystica . From " Donne's ' Holy Sonnet XIV , ' " Modern ...
... Poetry , " Studia Mys- tica , 9 ( 1986 ) , 46-59 , and " Meditation and Contemplation in Henry Vaughan : ' The Night , ' " 10 ( 1987 ) , 3–33 . Reprinted by permission of Studia Mystica . From " Donne's ' Holy Sonnet XIV , ' " Modern ...
Page xi
... poets : their relationship to divinity . John Donne's religious consciousness seems in a sense more fully developed and advanced in his secular rather than in his divine poetry . This critical percep- tion by itself may suggest how ...
... poets : their relationship to divinity . John Donne's religious consciousness seems in a sense more fully developed and advanced in his secular rather than in his divine poetry . This critical percep- tion by itself may suggest how ...
Page xvi
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Page 19
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Contents
Contemplative Tradition | 1 |
John Donne | 19 |
George Herbert | 81 |
Henry Vaughan | 129 |
Contemplative Poetry and the Modern Period | 173 |
APPENDIX A Grouping of the Songs and Sonnets | 241 |
Notes251 | 251 |
281 | |
Common terms and phrases
Bettenson biblical body chapter characteristics Christ Church consciousness contemplative tradition critics D. H. Lawrence Dame Kind Dark Night death divine poems Donne's Donne's Holy Sonnets Donne's poem ence essential eternal eucharistic Evelyn Underhill Exstasie flesh Galway Kinnell George Herbert God's Gregory of Nyssa grief Group Two poems heart heaven Henry Vaughan Herbert's poetry Holy Sonnet XIV human Illumination imagery Incarnation introvertive Irenaeus John Donne Kinnell Kinnell's language last Adam Lawrence lines lovers means meditation and contemplation Meister Eckhart metaphor modern mystical experience nature paradox Platonic Plotinus pneuma poetic poetry poets prayer psyche Purgation reality realized rebirth regeneration religious Renaissance resurrection sense seventeenth-century sexual shine Songs and Sonnets soul speaker spiritual stanza suggests symbol Temple thee theme thine things thou timelessness tion Traherne transcendent transformation true union University Vision of Dame Vision of Eros W. T. Stace Warren words writes