Fyfield Books
2 total works
"Select Meditations" is among the earliest works of the poet and mystic Thomas Traherne (1637-74). Written shortly after the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, the manuscript was not discovered until 1964 and first published by Carcanet in 1997. Traherne, a young clergyman in a country parish at the time, explores his relationship with God and his vocation to 'teach Immortal Souls the way to Heaven'. It is a spiritual journey that involves examination of his doubts and failings (he confesses to 'too much proneness to Speak'), of the political issues that shaped his times, and of the realities of ministering to his congregation. Above all, though, Traherne's meditations celebrate the beauty of the world and the human community transfigured by the love of God, in terms that speak across time. 'Remember', he writes, 'that the world is the beginning of Gifts.' Julia J. Smith's landmark edition, preserving the original spelling, provides a detailed introduction and notes on the text.
Thomas Traherne's poems were discovered in London in 1896 and originally assigned in error to Henry Vaughan. Later scholarship has established their true authorship. Traherne (1637-1674) was a remarkable religious writer. The son of a Hereford shoe-maker, he was well-educated, took religious orders and pursued a varied career. Prior to the discovery of his poems, he was best known for his 'Centuries of Meditations', of which passages from the third are most widely anthologised. The visionary precision of his prose characterises his verse as well: he is a not altogether orthodox mystic, and in his best work a fine writer altogether. Dick Davis, himself a notable young poet, presents a selection from the full range of Traherne's poetry and prose and provides a critical and biographical introduction.