Poetry of Contemplation: John Donne, George Herbert, Henry Vaughan, and the Modern Period. Arthur L. Clements

The article focuses on Cristina Campo’s poetry translations in the context of her literary choices infl uenced by her predilection to metaphysical literature. The category of metaphysical literature can be understood, fi rst of all, as related to metaphysical English poets like John Donne, George Herbert, Richard Crashaw, and Henry Vaughan. Metaphysical were also those authors whose writings defi ed the categories of space and time, and transcended the temporal and geographical limits. One of the greatest Campo’s fascinations from that perspective was the poetry of William Carlos Williams, as well as other authors that entered in her category of imperdonabili. Campo’s translational activity followed a well-delineated path related strictly to her metaphysical inclinations and manifested certain traits of the tendency to establish the personalized canon of real and worthwhile literature that at the same time opposed the mainstream literary choices of that time

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Baroque Europe

Modernism and the Theatre of the Baroque ◽

10.3366/edinburgh/9781474419628.003.0002 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Kate Armond

Keyword(s):

John Donne ◽

Turn Of The Century ◽

George Herbert ◽

Baruch Spinoza ◽

Andrew Marvell ◽

Richard Crashaw ◽

Metaphysical Poetry ◽

Evolutionary Science ◽

Anglo American ◽

Henry Vaughan

This chapter aims to offer an overview of those resurgences of the baroque that are most significant for my study – Germany’s rediscovery of the Trauerspiel and allegory, the colourful legacy of the Italian commedia dell ‘arte and the monist philosophy of Baruch Spinoza that informs Ernst Haeckel’s evolutionary science at the turn of the century. Anglo-American modernism’s debt to the baroque has already been discussed in some detail in the context of English metaphysical poetry, and this interest stemmed from T. S. Eliot’s essay ‘The Metaphysical Poets’ (1921). The essay is a review of Herbert J. C. Grierson’s anthology Metaphysical Lyrics and Poems of the Seventeenth Century: Donne to Butler (1921), and between them the two works were responsible for a reappraisal of the poetry of John Donne, George Herbert, Andrew Marvell, Richard Crashaw, Henry Vaughan and Abraham Cowley during the 1920’s and 1930s.

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The Flesh Profiteth Nothing

10.1093/oso/9780198808718.003.0002 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Paul Cefalu

Keyword(s):

Early Modern ◽

Early Modern Period ◽

George Herbert ◽

Richard Crashaw ◽

Modern Period ◽

Profound Influence ◽

Henry Vaughan ◽

Edward Taylor

The first chapter reviews the early modern interpretive fortunes of the most influential Johannine passages from the patristic through the early modern period: the bread of life discourses from John 6:26–59. Jesus’ designation of himself as the “bread of life” and “living bread” and his remarks on eating his flesh exert a profound influence on conceptions of the Eucharist from Augustine onward, prompting not only Ulrich Zwingli but also Thomas Cranmer and several English theologians to equate “eating” with believing. The burden of this chapter is to reconstruct the neglected influence of the bread of life discourse in the sacramental poems of George Herbert, Henry Vaughan, Richard Crashaw, and Edward Taylor.

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Discipleship Misunderstanding and Johannine Irony in the Poetry of George Herbert and Henry Vaughan

10.1093/oso/9780198808718.003.0007 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Paul Cefalu

Keyword(s):

George Herbert ◽

Key Features ◽

Henry Vaughan

The sixth chapter takes a closer look at the influence of Johannine discipleship misunderstanding (particularly the Johannine rhetoric of dramatic irony) on the poetry of George Herbert and Henry Vaughan. Through close readings of Herbert’s “The Bag,” “The Bunch of Grapes,” and “Love unknown,” as well as Vaughan’s “The Night,” the chapter argues that both poets rely on Johannine-inspired dramatic irony in order to express some of the key features of Johannine devotion, especially a high Christology that glorifies rather than abases Jesus. In most cases, especially in Herbert’s poetry, dramatic irony leads not to instability or paradox but to a clarification and heightened understanding of some of the deepest mysteries of Johannine Christology.

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God is Love

10.1093/oso/9780198808718.003.0005 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Paul Cefalu

Keyword(s):

Early Modern ◽

George Herbert ◽

Broad Group ◽

Early Modern English ◽

God's Love ◽

1 John ◽

Thomas Traherne ◽

Henry Vaughan

The fourth chapter describes the extent to which Augustine as well as a broad group of early modern homilists and poets were influenced by the ontological conception of love described in John’s First Epistle: “God is love, and hee that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him” (1 John 4: 16). For John, responsive love expressed toward God is achieved fundamentally through an embrace of Christ’s Word, particularly because God’s love for Christ is expressed eternally for the Son prior to the Incarnation. This chapter addresses the unique ways in which three early modern English poets—George Herbert, Henry Vaughan, and Thomas Traherne—appropriate the Johannine understanding of agape and an ontological conception of God’s love.

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