Thomas Traherne - Centuries, Poems and Thanksgivings (4 books)

THOMAS TRAHERNE (1637-1674) was an English poet, religious writer and theologian. He was the last of the mystical poets of the Anglican clergy, which included John Donne, George Herbert and Henry Vaughan. The greater part of Traherne’s poetry and prose meditations remained unknown until their recovery and publication in modern times. More substantial manuscripts were discovered in the 1960s and in 1997.

As a poet Traherne possessed originality of thought and intensity of feeling, particularly in his mystical evocations of the joy and innocence of childhood, and in this respect he has been compared with William Blake, Walt Whitman, and Gerard Manley Hopkins. His style bears resemblance to these authors in its incantatory rush, repetitions, and disregard for the rules of standard English. His poems, such as the often-anthologized "Shadows in the Water," suggest that adults have lost the joy of childhood, and with it an understanding of the divine nature of creation. His love for the natural world is frequently expressed in his works by a treatment of nature that evokes Romanticism—two centuries before the Romantic movement.

Traherne's reputation rests largely on the CENTURIES OF MEDITATIONS, published in 1908 after having been rediscovered in manuscript ten years earlier. It is a series of reflections on a variety of social, religious and spiritual topics, including Christian life and ministry, philosophy, happiness, desire and childhood. It is noted for its spiritual intensity, and "the wide scope of the writer's survey" which includes "all heaven and earth he takes for the province of the pious soul". C. S. Lewis called the Centuries "almost the most beautiful book in English".

The edition of Traherne's WORKS edited by Jan Ross, of which the first two volumes are included here, will be the first to contain all his extant writing. Volume I comprises four treatises that are diverse in subject and form. They show him to be profoundly aware of the currents of his age, theological, political, sociological and scientific, to which he responded with thoughtful and imaginative insights. Volume II contains the first part of COMMENTARIES OF HEAVEN (1670-74?), the manuscript of which was discovered in 1967 on fire in a refuse dump by a man in search of spare auto parts! It possesses the characteristics of a commonplace book, encyclopaedia and dictionary, and contains poetry, meditations, philosophical discourse, and polemic.


The following books are in PDF format:

* Centuries, Poems and Thanksgivings [2 vols.] (Oxford, 1958). H. Margoliouth, ed.^
* Works I (Brewer, 2005). J. Ross, ed.
* Works II: Commentaries of Heaven, Part 1 (Brewer, 2007). J. Ross, ed.

^ PDF by Mohamed5438

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