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The Concept of Love in Thomas Traherne's Centuries of Meditations

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The Concept of Love in Thomas Traherne's Centuries of Meditations THE CONCEPT OF LOVE IN THOMAS TRAHERNE’S CENTURIES OF MEDITATIONS By MALCOLM M. DAY A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE COUNCIL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA June, 1958 , PREFACE No one who reads the Centuries of Meditations (1908) or Christian Ethloks (1675) could escape the realization that the idea of love has great significance for Thomas Traherne, References to love run constantly through both Christian Ethlcks and the Centuries virtually dominating and Informing all other Ideas, for central In Traherne’s whole view of the world is his concept of love. It Is no exaggeration to assert that in order to be fully understood, everything Traherne says should be seen In relation to his concept of love. In view of this importance of love in Traherne’s thinking, it Is somewhat surprising to find that of those who have written about him, few do more than make slight reference to Traherne's preoccupation with love, and none go further than to outline Traherne's love concept. Itrat- Husain says ( The Mystical Element In the Metaphysical Poets of the Seventeenth Century . 1948, p. 22)* I have studied Thomas Traherne primarily as a philo- sophical mystic who gave to love a peculiar and significant place in his mystical speculations. and though Husain . gives a sketch of Traherne’s thinking about love, he does not clarify the basic assumptions or 11 principles that could fully explain Traherne’s philosophy with respect to love. Gladys Wlllet, also ( Traherne » an Essay . 1919) speaks to some extent of Traherne’s concept of love «.wd makes a brief analysis of it, but she, like Husain, does not attempt a study of the philosophical structure of Traherne’s ideas about love. And these two critics do more toward clarifying Traherne’s concept of love than any others who have written about his works. In view of this lack of exegesis of what we believe is Traherne’s most basic idea, it does not seem out of place to make a special study of Traherne’s concept of love with the purpose of setting forth the philosophical assumptions or metaphysical foundations that make it up. Such a study, we hope, will serve a double purpose* that, first, of providing an analysis of Traherne's central concept for students and interested readers of Traherne who have neither the time nor the inclination to draw out of his various statements about love a consistent philosophical structure and, second, of discouraging such narrowly conceived evalua- tions of Traherne as that of Douglas Bush, who says ( English Literature in the Earlier Seventeenth Century . 1945 , p. 149)* Neither as Christian nor as philosopher does Traherne seem quite mature; he hardly graduates from songs of innocence to songs of experience. ill It Is our contention (and one which we hope to show through this study) that Traherne is, on the contrary, fully mature as both a Christian and a philosopher* If we were to say that Traherne is not mature, then the same criticism would have to be levelled at such towering figures in the history of Christian mysticism as, for example, Meister Eckhart (1260-1328?) and St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153). Traherne is deceptively simple; though he speaks ecstatically of the Joys of "ohildhood, " he is, for the most part, speaking metaphorically to express a spiritual condition, attainable by the adult, which he believes the child enjoys naturally, without being conscious of it. As we point out in this thesis, Traherne* s "philosophy" of love is not only refined, intricate, and mature but also, however much dif- ference there may be in non-essentials, in a direct line with the Christian philosophy of some of the most important and influential thinkers of the past. In making this study, then, we have not set about to discover Traherne* s sources or to reveal all the possible influences on his thinking. Our primary objective is exegesis, the elucidation of an idea which we feel is too little understood; but we have, of course, attempted to "place" Traherne's thinking about love within its own century and to make a few remarks with regard to the tradition within which we feel Traherne's concept of love most clearly belongs. Our analysis is based upon a study of all the works which can be positively attributed to Traherne, but since the clearest statements of his thought are to be found in Christian Ethloks and Centuries of Meditations , these works are used almost exclusively in the preparation of this paper. Traherne's works, more than is usually the case with other authors, are so many elaborations of a single theme. His V poetry and his A Serious and Pathetical Contemplation of the Mercies of God . (1699) add nothing, philosophically speaking, to the Centuries and the Ethlcks . We do not draw on either the poetry or the Contemplation for the illustration of ideas which are already amply and more clearly illustrated by the Ethlcks and the Centuries . In order to prevent the needless repetition of "ibids" when quoting from Traherne's work, we have throughout resorted to the abbreviations C of M , for Centuries of Medi- tations : Ch Eth . for Christian Ethlcks : and E F . for Roman Forgeries (167*0 inserted, in parentheses, directly after the quoted material. The writer wishes to give grateful acknowledgement to the members of his supervisory committee, Dr. David Stryker and Dr. Arnold Wirtala for performing with patience and understanding a function which, though routine for them, was of great importance for the preparation of this thesis. v Special thanks, of course, go to the chairman of the committee, Dr. Robert H. Bowers, who, under somewhat less than ideal circumstances, directed the research and helped keep the study under control when it threatened to get out of hand. Great appreciation is also due to all those friends who ever had to endure the writer’s conversation or temporary anguish over the paper, especially to Claire and Bay Living- ston, who helped the writer understand both Traherne and rumself, and above all, to Charlotte Golub, who gave the writer moral support, encouragement, and the use of her typing skill in his most need. vi CONTENTS PREFACE. ill Chapter I. BACKGROUNDS 1 II. THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM 25 III. THE METAPHYSIC 39 IV. LOVE AND THE WORLD 60 V. TRAHERNE AND THE METAPHYSICAL POETS 76 VI. TRAHERNE AND THE CAMBRIDGE PLATO NISTS 98 VII. CONCLUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY 13 8 vii CHAPTER I BACKGROUNDS To say that the century in which Thomas Traherne lived was an age of transition is to use a cliche. It is, however, a cliche we do not seem able to do without. There is no other way of regarding the century save as one in which there was a radical shift in point of view, a transi- tion from the dominant preoccupations of the Middle Ages to the interests of the modern world. In the seventeenth century the modern world emerged. Before that time the ideas which were to dominate the character of modern thinking 1 were known and held by some individual thinkers,' ' but it was not until the seventeenth century that these ideas became so important as to cause a significant change in man*s view of himself and the proper use of his energies. As Basil Willey has said* If there was then any outstanding intellectual revolution in process of enactment, it was a general transference of interest from metaphysics to physics, from the contemplation of Being to the observation of Becoming. ... no event counted for more than the realisation that almost all the phenomena of the physical world could be "explained” by the laws of motion, as movements of particles of matter in space and time . 2 1 2 Because of this "transference of Interest" of which Willey speaks, it is possible to characterize the seven- teenth century as one which looked in two directions at once. Like a Janus, it faced both toward the interests of the past and toward those that were to become basic in the future. ^ Surprisingly enough, if the century is thought of in this way, a man like Thomas Traherne can be seen to represent the spirit of the age as satisfactorily in some respects as a man like Bacon. For Traherne, though con- centrating his attention upon the "contemplation of Being," never regarded the "observation of Becoming" as in any way conflicting with it. He thought of the realm of Being as entirely non-physical and did not attribute to it any of the characteristics of "Becoming." Since for Traherne, the physical and the metaphysical realms were founded on dif- ferent principles, one could not contradict the other, and he made no attempt to keep the two realms clearly dif- ferentiated. Bacon, however, felt that physics should not be mixed with metaphysics and sought to separate the two in order to gain general acceptance for the new philosophy* What can be asserted with confidence, I think, is that Bacon* s desire to separate religious truth and scientific truth was in the interests of science, not of religion. He wished to keep science pure from religion * the opposite part of the process—keeping religion pure from science—did not Interest him 4 nearly so much . i 3 For Bacon there was a genuine conflict between religion and science in so far as religion attempted any description of the natural world, for he tended to interpret such description as an effort to state objective reality. But for Traherne, the objective nature of religious statements involving the spatio-temporal world were purely ancillary to their "inner” content.
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