Thomas Traherne
Thomas Traherne (1636-1674) was a meditative religious poet from the seventeenth century, whose works gained prominence only in the late 1800s when they were rediscovered after being lost for over two centuries. Born into a family of shoemakers in Wales, Traherne's early life included a strong educational foundation supported by relatives. He attended Brasenose College, Oxford, where he eventually earned degrees in theology and was ordained as a priest in the Church of England. Traherne served as the rector of Credenhill, where he composed many of his influential meditations that reflect on the themes of childhood innocence and the spiritual connection between humanity and nature.
His most notable work, "Centuries of Meditations," explores his concept of "Felicity," which he viewed as the highest state of bliss experienced in childhood and sought to reclaim in adulthood. Through rich imagery, Traherne expresses a profound appreciation for the natural world and its mysteries, often contrasting this with the corruption associated with material wealth. Traherne later served as chaplain to Sir Orlando Bridgeman, spending his final years in a complex court environment that sharply contrasted with his introspective nature. His legacy connects him with fellow poets who sought spiritual purity, like Henry Vaughan and William Blake, situating him as an important figure in the tradition of religious and contemplative poetry.
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Thomas Traherne
English poet
- Born: c. 1637
- Birthplace: Herefordshire, England
- Died: October 1, 1674
- Place of death: Teddington, England
Biography
The seventeenth century meditative religious poet Thomas Traherne(truh-HURN) did not acquire literary fame until the late nineteenth century, for the poems and the prose reflections, Centuries of Meditations, on which his reputation rests, were lost for more than two hundred years after his death, reappearing finally at a London bookseller’s in 1897. Consequently, little is known about the poet’s quiet life. Most of the extant information was recorded by Anthony à Wood, a seventeenth century man of letters, in his Athenae Oxoniensis (1691-1692), a collection of brief biographical sketches of all the Oxford graduates he considered noteworthy.
Traherne was the son of a shoemaker who had come from a once-prominent Welsh family. His Celtic heritage links Traherne with Henry Vaughan, another seventeenth century religious poet whose works reveal a mystical concept of the relationship between humans and nature as well as a soul seeking to return to its original state of innocence when it was one with God.
Both Thomas and his elder brother, Philip, were provided with financial support for a good education, apparently by another Philip Traherne, a wealthy innkeeper of their village, who was probably a relative. Thomas entered Brasenose College, Oxford, in 1652. He was granted the degree of bachelor of arts in 1656 and received his master of arts in 1661, after his ordination to the priesthood in the Church of England in December, 1657. He remained a staunch, if somewhat unorthodox, Anglican throughout his life.
Traherne accepted the position of rector of the parish of Credenhill, near Hereford, soon after his ordination, but, according to the custom of the time, he evidently spent at least part of the years of his tenure there in Oxford, studying for the degree of bachelor of divinity, which was granted in 1669, and doing research in the Bodleian Library for his scholarly treatise, Roman Forgeries.
It was probably during the time at Credenhill that Traherne wrote many of his meditations glorifying the innocence and wonder of childhood and lamenting the corruption that wealth and the desire for it brings. His best poems and meditations dramatize his conception of Felicity, the “Highest Bliss,” which he experienced naturally as a child, subsequently lost, and then regained in adulthood. Traherne’s imagery for expressing his Felicity reflects an excitement for the new open spatial model of the universe that replaced the closed Ptolemaic system. As he wrote in one of his meditations:
Were nothing made but a Naked Soul, it would See nothing out of it Self. For Infinite Space would be seen within it. And being all sight it would feel it self as it were running parallel with it. And that truly in an Endless manner, because it could not be conscious of any Limits: nor feel it self present in one Center more than another. This is an infinite sweet mystery: to them that have Taste[d] it.
By 1669 Traherne had joined the staff of Sir Orlando Bridgeman, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal under Charles II, as chaplain. When Bridgeman retired to Teddington, a London suburb not far from Hampton Court, in 1672, Traherne accompanied him and remained in service there until his death, at the age of thirty-seven, in 1674.
The sophisticated, witty court near which Traherne spent the last few years of his life was a world completely foreign to his temperament. His intensely introspective meditations on innocence, childhood, and the beauties of nature reveal him as the true contemporary not of urbane Restoration classicists such as Edmund Waller and John Dryden but of poets such as Henry Vaughan, George Herbert, William Blake, and William Wordsworth, fellow seekers after a pure and uncorrupted spiritual state of Felicity.
Bibliography
Blevins, Jacob, ed. Re-Reading Thomas Traherne: A Collection of New Critical Essays. Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2007. This volume contains nine well researched essays that take a modern approach to the reading of Traherne’s poetry and prose, making it more relevant in the twenty-first century.
Day, Malcolm M. Thomas Traherne. Boston: Twayne, 1982. Day’s study of Traherne’s meditations and poems focuses on his use of abstraction, paradox, and repetition to evoke in his readers a sight of eternity unlike the childlike vision earlier critics described in his work. Day provides a biographical chapter, thoughtful analyses of Traherne’s work, a chronology, and an annotated select bibliography.
De Neef, A. Leigh. Traherne in Dialogue: Heidegger, Lacan, and Derrida. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1988. De Neef’s study investigates the applicability to Traherne’s work of three popular theories, with their themes of being, psychic identity, desire, and “the discursive economy of supplementarity.”
Hawkes, David. “Thomas Traherne: A Critique of Political Economy.” The Huntington Library Quarterly 62, nos. 3/4 (2001): 369-388. An examination of one isolated and idiosyncratic attempt by Traherne to question the most basic assumptions of political economy after the Restoration in England.
Lane, Belden C. “Traherne and the Awakening of Want.” Anglican Theological Review 81, no. 4 (Fall, 1999): 651-664. Lane examines Traherne’s argument that want is the very essence of God’s being.
Stewart, Stanley. The Expanded Voice: The Art of Thomas Traherne. San Marino, Calif.: Huntington Library, 1970. Although the bulk of his book is devoted to Traherne’s prose, Stewart devotes two chapters to the poetry, which is discussed in the context of a literary tradition. Contains two extensive readings of Traherne’s poems, “The Preparative” and the lesser known “Shadows in the Water.”