Thomas Merton and the Towers of Babel
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THOMAS MERTON AND THE TOWERS OF BABEL Submitted by Colleen Ann O’Sullivan B.A., B.Ed., Litt. B., Grad. Dip. R.Ed., M.Th. A thesis submitted in total fulfilment for the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Arts Sciences (NSW) Australian Catholic University Research Services Locked Bag 4115 Fitzroy, Victoria 3065 Australia 16th February 2006 1 Statement of Sources This thesis contains no material published elsewhere or extracted in whole or part from a thesis by which I have qualified for or been awarded another degree or diploma. No other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the main text of the thesis. This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other tertiary institution. All research procedures reported in the thesis received the approval of the relevant Ethics/Safety Committee (where required). ___________________ Colleen O’Sullivan 16th February 2006 2 List of Contents List of Abbreviations 5 Abstract 7 Part A Introduction 10 1. The Movement into the Web 13 2. For the Word is Spoken 30 3. Words and Silence Standing Face to Face 55 4. Our Silences Bear Fruit 77 5. The Word . .Binding the Broken World 101 6. Stones in the Wall of the City 114 7. There are No Actions Only Explanations 131 Part B 8. Words Create Reality 143 9. Fire Can Quench Water 147 10. The Builders of the Tower 160 11. Words are Poured Over Us Like Water 170 3 12. The Destroyer of the Tower 181 13. A Word That We Have Never Learned 191 14. This is the Word the Prophet Saw 214 15. You Must Discover New Words Born out of An Old Time 231 16. When the Word of God Will be Planted Among You 247 17. We Can Quickly Learn Their Language 253 18. Thy Words Are True 271 19. The Word, The Beginning and The End 292 Part C 20. Finale 310 Appendix 1. 316 Appendix 2. 355 Appendix 3. 359 Works Cited. 370 4 List of Abbreviations AJ The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton ATM The Art of Thomas Merton CP The Collected Poems of Thomas Merton CGB Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander Cont A Contemplation Re-considered: The Human Way In DQ Disputed Questions Encyclopedia The Thomas Merton Encyclopedia ES Entering the Silence Gandhi Gandhi and Non-Violence HB Heretic Blood IE The Inner Experience IM The Intimate Merton Lit Essays the Literary Essays of Thomas Merton LL Love and Living MB Merton: A Biography MS Manuscript of “The Oratorio” NSC New Seeds of Contemplation PML The Power and the Meaning of Love RJ The Road to Joy RM Run to the Mountain RT Redeeming the Time RU Raids on the Unspeakable SC Seeds of Contemplation SIL Silence in Heaven SMTM The Seven Mountains of Thomas Merton SS A Search for Solitude SSM The Seven Storey Mountain SYC The Man in the Sycamore Tree TLB The Living Bread 5 TMAP Thomas Merton’s American Prophet TMMA Thomas Merton: Monk and Artist TMPJ Thomas Merton’s Paradise Journey TTW Turning Toward the World VC Vow of Conversation WC What is Contemplation? Zen Zen and the Birds of Appetite 6 Abstract This thesis will examine intensively “The Tower of Babel: A Morality” a significant work of Thomas Merton, a major spiritual writer of the 20th Century, entitled. In order to explore this play three other works which impacted significantly on the development of the drama will also be examined. These three works are: A poem also called “Tower of Babel”; a second poem entitled “A Responsory” and a musical work titled “The Tower of Babel: An Oratorio”. Even though Victor Kramer, a Merton scholar, noted the significance of the Morality, the existing literature has all but ignored the impact of “The Oratorio” and the drama. Until this author requested a copy of “The Oratorio” from the Merton Centre in Louisville, Kentucky the work had been known by name only and had never been analysed. Yet this work was a major development from the poem “A Responsory” and led to the creation of the Morality Play. This work argues that “A Morality” was pivotal in contributing to personal and spiritual change in Merton as well as developing a greater depth of social understanding in him. It will also argue that the work contained the seeds of future Merton writings. Writing the drama moved Merton towards a contemplative maturity based on communion not simply community. While many studies have alluded to the play none of them have studied it with this particular focus. This new focus is the discovery of the ways Merton attempted to resolve the dilemma he experienced between the paths of monk and poet and how, in doing so, he created for spiritual seekers a fresh inner significance for the Babel story. This work is opening up new ground for an understanding of the importance of Merton’s insights in the contemporary world. The methods used in this thesis are: 1. Contextualising, that is establishing the historical, social, spiritual and literary framework in which the poems and plays were written, and 2. Literary analysis. 7 Part A of the thesis examines the monastic, spiritual, social, literary and academic contexts which brought Merton to the moment of writing the Morality. Part B is organised chronologically and is an intensive analysis of the poems, the Oratorio and the Morality Play. Part C identifies the seeds of future growth contained within the Morality play and points to some of the directions in which these seeds developed in later Merton works. 8 Part A: The Contexts 9 Introduction: Thomas Merton and the Towers of Babel This thesis, “Thomas Merton and the Towers of Babel”, examines a series of four connected works written by the Cistercian monk, poet and social critic, Thomas Merton (Father M. Louis), two poems, “Tower of Babel”, and “A Responsory”, “The Tower of Babel: An Oratorio” and “The Tower of Babel: A Morality”. In this thesis, when it is necessary to refer to the set of works, they have been grouped together under the title “The Babel Works”. In this thesis title of the musical work will be abbreviated to “TheOratorio” and the morality play will be shortened to “A Morality”. This thesis agrees with the scholars William Shannon and Victor Kramer that the last named work, “A Morality” is a pivotal work for Thomas Merton and required further exploration as there has been only limited research done on the work to the present. The approach to the study of the play is new as it involve a chronological study of the emergence of the play and a contextual study of the various environments in which Merton matured and developed as a monk and writer. In studying the evolution of the morality play the researcher used a copy of “The Oratorio” in manuscript from Columbia University rare books section. “The Oratorio had not been studied in any form before that time. The existence of the work was known as Dr Patrick O’Connell had referred to it in writing the entry for “The Merton Encyclopedia” (O’Connell 490). A request was sent to Dr. Paul Pearson of the Merton centre at Bellarmine University. In turn he requested Dr. O’Connell for its location and then forwarded a copy of the manuscript in response to the request. Dr. O’Connell has since produced a paper on “The Oratorio” which he has shared with the author. The last three works in the group of poems and dramatic works cited above were written between 1953 and 1955. A request from Mrs Gertrude Hindemith, wife 10 of Paul Hindemith, the composer, produced the poem “A Responsory”. “The Oratorio” was written, at the request of Hindemith as an attempt to increase the dramatic content of the original work. When Hindemith decided not to use the work, Merton then used the content, and some of the format, to compose the morality play. The original poem, “Tower of Babel”, was included in various ways in the last two works. These works then emerged out of a particular context and indicated a number of things about Merton himself at the time of writing them, that is between 1953 and 1957. This was a time of reassessing for Merton and the thesis focuses on the indications of change and the areas of occurring in his thinking present in “The Morality” particularly. There is no doubt “The Oratorio” was also a significant work for Merton. It opened for him anew way of expressing himself and gave him the freedom to attempt a literary genre, in which he had not previously written: drama. He would not write in that genre again. The particular form of drama he chose was a twelfth century morality play. Apart from the fact this was a time in church history he loved and felt at home in, the form gave Merton the distance and the objectivity to research significant questions regarding his own life and vocation. At the time of writing the last three of “The Babel works” Merton was still struggling with two contraries in his life: his call to be monk and poet. All Merton’s work is autobiographical and his personas in the play allowed him to examine these two conflicting aspects of himself and to come to some resolution regarding them. “A Morality” also contains the seeds of Merton’s future writings. This thesis breaks new ground by unearthing buried indications of the directions Merton’s writing was to take in the late fifties and sixties.