Poetry of contemplation john donne, george herbert, henry vaughan, and the modern period 1990

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Poetry of Contemplation : John Donne, George Herbert,
Henry Vaughan, and the Modern Period
Clements, Arthur L.
State University of New York Press
0791401278
9780791401279
9780585091136
English
English poetry--Early modern, 1500-1700--History and
criticism, Contemplation in literature, Christian poetry,
English--History and criticism, Mysticism in literature,
Donne, John,--1572-1631--Criticism and interpretation,
Herbert, George,--1593-1633--Cri
1990
PR545.C675C57 1990eb

821/.3/09384
English poetry--Early modern, 1500-1700--History and
criticism, Contemplation in literature, Christian poetry,
English--History and criticism, Mysticism in literature,
Donne, John,--1572-1631--Criticism and interpretation,
Herbert, George,--1593-1633--Cri


Page i

Poetry of Contemplation
John Donne, George Herbert, Henry Vaughan, and the Modern Period
ARTHUR L. CLEMENTS
State University of New York Press


Page ii

Published by
State University of New York Press, Albany
© 1990 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without
written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and
reviews.
For information, address State University of New York
Press, State University Plaza, Albany, NY 12246
Library of Congress Cataloging-in Publication Data
Clements, Arthur L.

Poetry of contemplation: John Donne, George Herbert, Henry Vaughan, and the
modern period / Arthur L. Clements.
p. cm
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-7914-0126-X. ISBN 0-7914-0127-8 (pbk.)
1. English poetryEarly modern, 15001700History and criticism.
2. Contemplation in literature. 3. Christian poetry. English-History
and criticism. 4. Mysticism in literature. 5. Donne,
John, 15721631Criticism and interpretation. 6. Herbert, George,
15931633Criticism and interpretation. 7. Vaughan, Henry,
16221695Criticism and interpretation. 8. Literature,
Modern20th centuryHistory and criticism. I. Title.
PR545.C675C57 1990
821©.3©09384dc19
88-32408
CIP
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1


Page iii

For my children,
Margaret,
Stephen,
Michael,
and Thomas

And for my grandchildren,
Michele, Phillip, Rachele, and Anthony

Page v

Contents
Acknowledgments
Preface
Chapter 1 Contemplative Tradition
Chapter 2 John Donne
Chapter 3 George Herbert
Chapter 4 Henry Vaughan
Chapter 5 Contemplative Poetry and the Modern Period
Appendix A Grouping of the Songs and Sonnets and a
General Dating of Poems
Appendix B Selected Bibliography of "The Exstasie"
Notes
Works Cited
Index

vii
xi
1
19
81
129
173
241
246
251
281

297


Page vii

Acknowledgments
This book has been a long time in the making. Since "gratitude is heaven itself," as
William Blake remarks, it is thus a very special pleasure to express appreciation for the
help and encouragement of those who contributed in various ways to its making.
I feel a particular sense of debt and gratitude to two of my teachers, W. T. Stace and R.
A. Durr, who early stimulated my interest, respectively, in the philosophy of religion and
in seventeenth-century poetry, and from both of whom I learned much about mysticism. I
hope and believe their good influences may be apparent from the beginning to the end of
this book.
Friends and colleagues made various contributions. Albert Tricomi of SUNY-Binghamton
read through the manuscript and offered many thoughtful suggestions; I was able to
consult with during the development of the manuscript through earlier and later versions,
and I invariably found his responses constructive and helpful. Mary Giles of California
State University, Sacramento, gave much specific, useful advice not only as reader of the
manuscript but also earlier as the editor of Studia Mystica, in which two of my essays
incorporated in this book were previously published; I am especially grateful for her
advice to expand the last chapter and strengthen the case for the transformative power
of contemplative poetry. Robert Boenig and Terence Hoagwood, both of Texas A&M
University, also read the manuscript and provided many thoughtful and detailed
comments for improvements. Norman Burns of SUNY-Binghamton read part of the
manuscript. All students of seventeenth-century English literature are of course indebted
to the work of Louis L. Martz of Yale University and Joseph H. Summers of the University
of Rochester; I have benefitted, additionally, from their insightful readings

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of my manuscript. I am conscious of the valuable contributions made by all these readers.
The shortcomings are my own.
If this book is at all gracefully written, it owes much to the help, example, and presence
of the poet, Susan Hauptfleisch Clements, my wife.
My friend and colleague Philip Brady helped with the proofreading and index. Tamara
Jetton, a student in my graduate seventeenth-century poetry seminar, Fall 1989, also
helped with proofreading.
The National Endowment for the Humanties awarded me a fellowship which provided free
time to do some of the research and writing on George Herbert. The Research Foundation
of the State University of New York supported the research and writing of other parts of
this book with awards of summer fellowships in 1973, 1974, and 1978. The Union of
University Professionals of the State University of New York granted two Faculty Travel
Awards to enable me to travel to libraries to conduct research.
The following publishers and journals kindly granted permission to reprint, usually in a
much revised form, some of my previously published work.
From The Mystical Poetry of Thomas Traherne. Reprinted by permission of Harvard
University Press.
From "Theme, Tone and Tradition in George Herbert's Poetry," English Literary
Renaissance, 3 (1973), 264283. Reprinted by permission of English Literary Renaissance.
From "Mysticism, Science, and the Task of Poetry," Studia Mystica, 9 (1986), 4659, and
"Meditation and Contemplation in Henry Vaughan: 'The Night,'" 10 (1987), 333. Reprinted
by permission of Studia Mystica.
From "Donne's 'Holy Sonnet XIV,'" Modern Language Notes, 76 (1961), 484489. Reprinted
by permission of The Johns Hopkins University Press.
From "Sacramental Vision: The Poetry of Robert Penn Warren," South Atlantic Bulletin, 43
(1978), 4765. Reprinted by permission of South Atlantic Modern Language Association.
From "Syntax, Structure, and Self in Galway Kinnell's Poetry," 6 (1987), 5685. Reprinted
by permission of Cumberland Poetry Review.

The following publishers kindly granted permission to reprint some of the work of others.
From Mysticism by Evelyn Underhill. Reprinted by permission of NAL Penguin, Inc.


Page ix

From Robert Penn Warren's New and Selected Poems: 19231985, and Selected Poems
19231975. Copyright by Robert Penn Warren. Reprinted by permission of Random House.
From The Complete Poems of D. H. Lawrence, collected and edited by Vivian de Sola
Pinto and F. Warren Roberts. Copyright (c) 1964, 1971 by Angelo Ravagli and C. M.
Weekley, Executors of the Estate of Frieda Lawrence Ravagli. All rights reserved.
Reprinted by permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Books USA, Inc.
From The Collected Letters of D. H. Lawrence by D. H. Lawrence. Copyright 1932 by the
Estate of D. H. Lawrence. Copyright renewed (c) 1960 by the Estate of Frieda Lawrence
Ravagli. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Vikig Penguin, a division of
Penguin Books USA, Inc.
"The Bear" from Body Rags by Galway Kinnell. Copyright (c) 1967 by Galway Kinnell.
Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company.
"St. Francis and the Sow" and "Fergus Falling" from Mortal Acts, Mortal Words by Galway
Kinnell. Copyright (c) 1980 by Galway Kinnell. Reprinted by permission of Houghton
Mifflin Company.
"Freedom, New Hampshire" from What a Kingdom It Was by Galway Kinnell. Copyright
(c) 1960 by Galway Kinnell. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company.


Page xi

Preface
The Argument. As the true method of knowledge is experiment, the true faculty of knowing must be the faculty which
experiences. This faculty I treat of the Poetic Genius is the true Man.

William Blake

The desire for union with God is the basic and vital center of religious life, and this desire
is the essence of mysticism. Mystical or contemplative experience is the heart of religion
in the sense that its characterizes the divine as being present in experience. Every
mystic's distinction is that he or she attains to union or an aspect of it in this life, and
need not wait entirely until the afterlife. The mystic is the one who, given an initial and
partial realization of higher reality, makes the fervent attempt to realize full union.
Mysticism need not and must not be set apart from orthodox faith-religion but is in fact its
most profound and essential life. The wise mystic, as Rufus Jones notes, does not exalt
his own illuminations over historical revelation, but rather interprets them "in the light of
the master-revelations."
To understand, the seventeenth-century religious poets requires a knowledge of the
central religious tradition that they themselves would have known, lived, and dwelled in,
for this tradition, through its Bible and its writers, theologians, and Church doctors ("the
light of the master-revelations"), formulates what is most essential to these poets: their
relationship to divinity. John Donne's religious consciousness seems in a sense more fully
developed and advanced in his secular rather than in his divine poetry. This critical
perception by itself may suggest how important and permeating religious


Page xii

consciousness was in everyday life during the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Perhaps the
modern mind, after "the death of God" in the nineteenth century, cannot fully appreciate,
at least without a radical transformation of that mind, that the religious life was as vital,
integral, and nourishing to the seventeenth-century poet as earth, sun, air, and rain are
to a flower. And at the center of the heart of that religious life was the passionate
contemplative desire for union with divinity. Thus, a knowledge of contemplative tradition
and of the nature of contemplative life is central to an understanding and appreciation of

these poets. To be a Christian in the fullest sense, each one of them would thoroughly
need and want to be, as this book intends the terms, a Christian contemplative.
Critical opinion has been vigorously and variously advanced concerning the major
religious elements of meditation and contemplation (or mysticism) in the poetry of John
Donne, George Herbert, and Henry Vaughan. First, there are those critics who argue ably
and knowledgeably that these three are meditative poets; secondly, those who adduce
considerable scholarship to establish one or another of the three poets not primarily as
meditative but as mystical; and, thirdly, those who with seemingly equal skill, contend
that no one of the three is at all a mystic, or who at least reject the primacy of mysticism.
One of many reasons for the critical division regarding mysticism in these poets may
simply involve the matter of which poems a critic focuses upon. Some of their poems are
conventionally religious and pious; Some are mainly meditative; but others, usually their
most distinguished and highly regarded poems, have profound and powerful mystical
elements in them, sometimes alongside the pious and meditative elements. Hence critics
may well be divided; and hence the answer to the question whether these poets are
mystical (which some critics answer yes and others no) is yes and nodepending on which
poems one is referring to, on whether one believes a few or many poems must be
mystical before designating a poet mystical, and, especially, on how one understands the
meaning of "mysticism."
The critical problem is of course more serious than just choosing poems, and is in part
linguistic, or definitional, precisely because the vexed yet vital question of mysticism in
the seventeenth-century religious poets is often answered in terms of confused,
uncertain, or ambiguous usages of the word "mysticism." As the anonymous Benedictine
author of Medieval Mystical Tradition and Saint John of the Cross remarks, "mysticism is
one of the most abused words in


Page xiii

all civilized languages.'' To say nothing of widespread popular use and misuse, various

scholars, whether they regard any one of these poets as a mystic or not, may readily be
found using this troublesome word and its grammatical variants in quite different and
even casual, inexact ways. Oversimplified, inaccurate, and untraditional usages are
misleading and in effect turn discussion of mysticism in seventeenth-century poetry
essentially into rhetorical argument. Although there is no single, simple, wholly
satisfactory "definition" of mysticism, there are many reliable and valuable scholarly
works which should help to clarify and de-mystify the subject, and raise it from the level
of rhetoric to substance. Works by such distinguished modern authors as Aldous Huxley,
Thomas Merton, Sidney Spencer, W. T. Stace, D. T. Suzuki, Evelyn Underhill, and Alan
Watts, to name a few, admirably describe the common and distinctive characteristics of
mystical experiences.
Even if mysticism were properly understood, still another reason for the critical disputes
and division is the failure to distinguish carefully the stages of the spiritual life. This
failure is understandable, for such distinguishing is itself difficult and complicated; and the
stages of spiritual growth through which the mystic typically passes are sometimes
rendered as three or seven or five, depending on the degree of generality or particularity
desired. Few travellers of the via mystica present them all in perfection, and in many
cases some stages are blurred, not readily apparent, or even absent. Yet, even with such
difficulties, the effort to distinguish, which this book shall make, must be made in order to
help determine the extent to which the poetry is meditative or contemplative.
Other reasons for critical differences and difficulties arise from the notion that religious
poets may have recourse to mystical terminology as a source of powerful metaphor and,
more importantly, from the fact that meditation leads to and blends into contemplation
and is therefore not always readily distinguishable from it. Given these circumstances,
Louis Martz properly cautions against hasty and inaccurate labeling of meditative writers
as mystical. He is of course aware of the presence of mystical elements in Donne,
Herbert, Vaughan, and Traherne, but he believes that "the term 'meditative' seems more
accurate than 'mystical' when applied to English religious poetry of the seventeenth
century." Although "meditative" may seem more accurate than the term "mystical" or
"contemplative" when applied in general to English religious poetry of the seventeenth

century, there still remain two important questions: (1) which term is more accurate
when applied to particular


Page xiv

poems and to a particular poet of the seventeenth century; and (2) to what extent did
ancient-medieval-Renaissance contemplative literature, in addition to sixteenth-century
meditative literature, "influence" seventeenth-century English religious poetry.
Since there is no simple, wholly satisfactory definition of mysticism, and since the word is
emotionally charged, ambiguous, and troublesome, to say the least, a critic may, instead
of using a simple or otherwise unsatisfactory definition, alternatively read widely in the
primary and secondary literature of mysticism and then apply such knowledge as
appropriate to the study of particular poets and poems in the hope that such efforts might
be illuminating. Having recourse to mystical tradition, to the traditional distinction
between meditation and contemplation, to the stages, types, and kinds of mysticism, to
key contemplative ideas, and to certain lucidly described characteristics of mystical
experience may help bring a degree of clarity and precision to this vexed subject. All of
these mystical matters will be discussed in Chapter One, Contemplative Tradition, which
thereby provides some definition of "contemplation" and "contemplative tradition."
Chapters Two, Three, and Four will apply the terms and distinctions of the first chapter as
necessary to, respectively, Donne, Herbert, and Vaughan, in order to determine more
clearly and certainly the nature and extent of contemplation in their major poetry and
thereby further to illuminate that poetry. The concluding Chapter Five will extend this
study of contemplative poetry to some modern poets (concentrating on D. H. Lawrence,
Robert Penn Warren, and Galway Kinnell) and to contemporary concerns, including
scientific and moral matters. The primary object of this book, then, is the scholarly one of
addressing the matter of mysticism in this major poetry. By relating this poetry to
contemporary issues, the last chapter attempts to show the continuing relevance of
contemplative poets to the modern reader so that, among other reasons, they, and poets

in general, may acquire the larger audience that poets deserve.
In a large measure, this book is an outgrowth and continuation of my work on The
Mystical Poetry of Thomas Traherne (Harvard). Traherne, that book shows, may best be
understood by setting his poetry in the context of ancient-medieval-Renaissance
contemplative tradition. The main question for this present book is precisely to what
extent and in what particular qualified ways may Donne, Herbert, and Vaughan be thus
viewed. This book intends to present the bestfullest, fairest, most accuratereading of
contemplation in the work of these poets. Although the poetry of Traherne is regarded


Page xv

as the least accomplished poetically of these four poets, it well may be the most
spiritually, mystically, advanced. To reverse the usual progress and to proceed from the
study of Traherne in the context of contemplative tradition to the study of these earlier
seventeenth-century poets may thus provide a valuable perspective. As one of these
poets has written,
Some men a forward motion love,
But I by backward steps would more.

Admittedly, forward steps may also lead to genuine progress in apprepciating these
poets, so, where appropriate, this book will draw, too, upon the valuable contributions to
our subject made by various modern authorities, critics, and writers as well as by ancient,
medieval, and Renaissance ones, so that a double perspective may bring into sharper
focus, "as two eyes make one in sight," the poets of our study.
The wealth of valuable work by many critics and editors of Donne, Herbert, and Vaughan
places later scholars under heavy debt. Recent scholarship has centered on the question
concerning which historical contexts are most appropriate for understanding the texts of
these poets, particularly on the issue of Reformation Protestantism versus medieval and
counter-Reformation Catholicism, a division which in part may be a twentieth-century

fabrication. The abundance of fine critical work makes citing names in this Preface
impractical. Much of my indebtedness to many critics and editors will become apparent in
the course of this book and in the Notes. Since various sources, influences, backgrounds,
and contexts contribute significantly to informing a major poet's work, study of these
various elements obviously may improve our understanding of the poetry. By considering
the context of contemplative tradition both in its ancient and medieval dimensions and in
its Renaissance aspects, I intend to take both telescopic and microscopic views, as it
were, of Donne, Herbert, and Vaughan, to provide both a perennial and a contemporary
single Catholic-Protestant tradition as illuminating context, and thereby perhaps also help
bridge some of the divisions, real and apparent, between Reformatiion Protestantism and
medieval and counter-Reformation Catholicism.
Of necessity, not all the important questions pertaining to a complex subject can be
answered in a single book. For example, how generally did Anglicans and other
Protestants respond to mystical tradition; how did they modify or otherwise make use of
it? What is


Page xvi

the relationship of mystical tradition for formal aspects of Anglican theology or to
Calvinism? How did Perkins, Adams, Ussher, and Hall, for example, understand and define
contemplation? How did Protestants in general modify medieval Catholic contemplative
tradition to accord with the tenets of their faith? Do Protestant and Catholic mystical
traditions differ in essential ways? Because mysticism, in its concentration on what is
most essential about religion, tends to transcend sectarian and denominational
boundaries, I believe Catholic and Protestant mystical traditions do not differ significantly
in essential matters. But this book's primary concern is with the response of Donne,
Herbert, and Vaughan (not of Anglicans or Protestants in general) to contemplative
tradition and especially with the ways by which that tradition may eludicate these poets'
works. While I can and do consider, directly and indirectly, some relevant sixteenth- and

seventeenth-century figures, including Protestant ones, it is beyond the intentional and
scope of this book to study Donne, Herbert, and Vaughan exlusively (or even just more
thoroughly) from the perspective of sixteenth-century Protestantism. Such a study,
answering the above and other questions, should prove valuable but must be the subject
of another book. Obviously, mysticism is not simply or solely a sixteenth-century
phenomenon. To understand it as it probably would have presented itself to Donne,
Herbert, and Vaughan necessitates adopting a large historical contemplative context from
the Bible and Plato and early Church Fathers through important mystics of the Middle
Ages to sixteenth-and seventeenth-century contemplatives.
The first four chapters mainly, but not exclusively, treat the poem within this broad
mystical context as an object which we can determine is or is not contemplative in the
precise senses delineated by this book. As indicated, for example, by the many more
frequent references to "the poem" and to "the poet or speaker" rather than just to "the
poet," the main focus in these chapters is on the text, not the poet, person, human being
who wrote the text (such focus being all the more important because many vital
biographical facts concerning Donne, Herbert, and Vaughan are unavailable). Since
mysticism is essentially an experimental or experiential matter, discussing the subject
necessarily involves discussing "mystical experience.'' But merely to say that "Donne,
Herbert, and Vaughan may or may not have undergone mystical experiences" is
cautiously to avoid the "naive expressive theory," according to current antiautobiographical critical trends, and to make a true but timid, safe, and not very
meaningful statement. Would we say that Donne, Herbert,


Page xvii

and Vaughan wrote meditative poems but did not practice meditation? Should we assert
that a poet wrote contemplative poems but did not experience contemplation? Of course,
a poet may write one or a few "meditative" and "contemplative" poems for the sake of
literary exercise or for whatever other reasons. But to suppose that a poet might
compose a large body of meditative and contemplative poems with no relation to or

revelation of his own spiritual life is simply silly, not genuinely scholarlyl. The relationship
between poem and poet's life is often tenuous, complex, and difficult to determine but
also usually not non-existent. That difficulty should not silence us but rather prompt us to
exercise the best scholarly care and arguments in order to make informed, intelligent,
reasonable statements. Besides, it is not any biographical details of the poet's life that
we are here trying to determine from the poetry but, beyond our main concern with the
poetry itself, whether that poetry generally suggests the poet may have been a
contemplative, and, if so, in what sense. Literary criticism must be scholarly in the best
senses but need not be merely insular and irrelevant. Renaissance and modern poets,
including Lawrence, Warren, and Kinnell, have discussed the vital connection between
their works and their own experience, especially religious experience, between poetry
and late "real" world, between the moral and esthetic concerns as aspects of creative
activity, and between poetry and the two selves. Scholars (as well as poets) should, at
least occasionally, swim out into the deep waters, go beyond the text and attempt to use
all their accumulated knowledge and wisdom to make some intelligent statements
(speculations, if you prefer) about the relation of text to author, reader, and world. In the
last section of Chapter Four and in Chapter Five, the question, implicit throughout the
book, of contemplative poetry's redemptive and transformative power becomes most
prominent, and the relevance, indeed the vital necessity, of such poetry to the ''real"
world and to human life, to the reader, is explicitly discussed. The poet, the reader, and
the outer world, as well as the poem, all come into consideration in the hope that this
book will stimulate informed dialog both about contemplation in poetry and about the
value of the poetry of contemplation to our lives.


Page 1

1
Contemplative Tradition
One of the awful things about writing when you are a Christian is that for you the ultimate reality is the Incarnation, the

present reality is the Incarnation, and nobody believes in the Incarnation; that is, nobody in your audience. My audience
are the people who think God is dead.
Flannery O'Connor

In my view, the context most pertinent and enlightening for the study of Donne, Herbert,
and Vaughan, as well as Traherne, is the rich and complex Christian contemplative or
mystical tradition, 1 with which their own visions are most in accord. This is to imply that
their most important actual or probable sources and influences, direct or indirect, are the
Bible, Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Church Fathers, and Renaissance Humanists, and that to
these one should add, either as direct sources and influences or at least as spiritual
brethren, such names as Richard of St. Victor, St. Bonaventura, Meister Eckhart, Jan
Ruysbroeck, the author of The Cloud of Unknowing, Walter Hilton, Julian of Norwich, St.
John of the Cross, and Jacob Boehme, to list in chronological order but a few Christian
mystics among the many contemplatives whose major ideas correspond closely to these
poets' ideas and whose writings may therefore illuminate their poems.
A major assumption of this book, then, is that much of the poetry of Donne, Herbert, and
Vaughan may best be understood and appreciated through the perspective and within the
context of Christian contemplative tradition, including of course the effect of the Bible,
Plato, Neoplatonism, and Aristotelianism on that tradition. The great speculative Christian
school of mysticism, especially between Eckhart and Boehme, forms a curiously wellintegrated tradition (and one which might be considered roughly equivalent to a Christian
branch of the Perennial Philosophy). Renaissance and later medieval mystics were
familiar with earlier Christian mystics as well as with the Church Fathers, many of whom
were themselves


Page 2

contemplatives, and with classical writers. Even Plotinus himself, the pagan Neoplatonist
who so remarkably affected Christianity, like other Neoplatonists often employs
Aristotelian vocabulary, argumentation, and ideas. The numerous strands of this complex

contemplative tradition are more variously and closely interwoven than might at first
glance appear. 2 Even if the reader finally does not share the view that this broad yet
interconnected Catholic-Protestant tradition provides the most illuminating context for the
Anglican poets Donne, Herbert, and Vaughan, I trust the reader will nevertheless find
that numerous poems are elucidated by this book's approach and methods and that the
very confused subject of mysticism in these poets is somewhat clarified.
Drawing upon all of the authors mentioned above and other mystics, modern scholars
provide an analytical overview of ancient-medieval-Renaissance contemplative tradition
or, more precisely, different aspects of it as it existed in the Renaissance and was known
to seventeenth-century and later writers. These aspects include the stages, types, and
characteristics of mystical experience, the kinds of "vision," and some key contemplative
ideas, such as regeneration and the distinctions between the two selves and between
meditation and contemplation. This century has produced valuable scholarship on
mysticism, and one cannot reasonably expect to improve much upon the brilliant work of
distinguished authorities. Thus, availing itself of the more pertinent scholarship, this
chapter presents a synthetic account of contemplative tradition, grounded in the many
mystical writings of antiquity, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, via some of the best
(for our purposes) modern authorities. But as a scholar of mysticism, I hope also in other
ways to make various, direct contributions to the subject. Thus, in addition to the
relevant work of twentieth-century experts on mysticism, I will also, as needed, directly
consider in this and later chapters contributions of the Bible, Plato, Aristotle, and
numerous specifically mentioned mystics and Church Fathers. This twofold method should
afford an efficient, scholarly way of providing the necessary background and concepts of a
very complex subject in an orderly, clear, and accurate manner.
The anonymous Benedictine author of Medieval Mystical Tradition and Saint John of the
Cross, who surveys the meanings of the words meditation, prayer, and contemplation,
points out that in the twelfth century and later there existed the scale or order, going
from lowest to highest, of lectio divina (prayerful reading of some portion of the
Scripture), meditation, prayer, contemplation. Contemplation

Page 3

was understood as "an experimental union with God which no meditation can produce,
but for which a soul may pray. The soul is 'athirst,' 'aglow with love,' and God's answer is
contemplationobviously the 'infused contemplation' of modern spiritual theology. Since
there can be no question of real 'beginners' reaching this stage, we can see how
gradually, as this meaning became attached to contemplation, that word came to be
synonymous with contemplative or mystical prayer. Meditation and contemplation came
to mean an earlier and a later kind of prayer, and no longer a mere difference in degree
in one and the same prayer . the latter [contemplation] is a free gift of God." (9).
Although the word "meditation" was sometimes used inter-changeably in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries with the closely related words "prayer" and "contemplation,"
the terms did, however, also retain in those centuries the same distinct medieval
meanings. As St. John of the Cross writes, "the state of beginners comprises meditation
and discursive acts" (Flame, III, 30, in Complete Works, III, 68). Meditation, Louis Martz
points out, ''cultivates the basic, the lower levels of the spiritual life; it is not, properly
speaking, a mystical activity, but a part of the duties of every man in daily life" (The
Poetry of Meditation, 16). Even more than as a set form of prayer, meditation was
understood as a lower, early, or pre-mystical stage of the spiritual life, which may very
well employ certain forms of prayer. It was considered an almost indispensable
preparation for the progressive realization of mystical experience or contemplation, the
higher level and goal of spiritual progress. To be a meditative poet, therefore, is to be at
least potentially a mystical poet, to be, in any event, in the early stages of and in
progress toward the contemplative life, and we should indeed expect to find meditative
poems in the body of a mystical poet's work.
In the Middle Ages and during the Renaissance, spiritual life and progress were frequently
but not always charted by the threefold stages of the Purgative Way, Illuminative Way,
and Unitive Way or, more simply, Purgation, Illumination, and Union. The stages of
spiritual growth through which the mystic passes were sometimes rendered as more than

three, depending on the degree of generality or particularity desired. As exemplified by
Richard Rolle's The Form of Perfect Living and the anonymous Contemplations of the
Dread and Love of God, different spiritual writers preferred different systems of stages.
During the Renaissance, however, the time-honored trifold system was basic and
continues so to the present day. Like the more numerous stages of other systems, the
three stages, well-known


Page 4

to seventeenth-century writers, are, of course, to be understood as diagrammatic, as an
approximate and useful map, not as the actual territory of the mystical life, with its
multivaried peaks, plateaus, and valleys. It is helpful to relate this traditional threefold
schema in a general way to the traditional distinction between meditation and
contemplation. We may say that meditation, the early period of the spiritual life,
generally corresponds to Purgation; and contemplation, advanced periods of spiritual life,
corresponds to Illumination and Union. Meditation may lead to contemplation, and the
early stages may lead to the later ones. To determine whether a writer is or is not a
mystic is in part to make a judgment about his progress in these familiar, well-described,
and traditional terms. It must be emphasized that there is no absolute disjunction but
rather a continuity, interrelationship, and movement back and forth between meditation
and contemplation and the stages of the mystical life. For example, "Saint John of the
Cross not only says that progressives, who have begun to receive graces of mystical
contemplation, should return to active meditation whenever they 'see that the soul is not
occupied in repose and (mystical) knowledge.' He adds that meditation is an ordinary
means of disposing oneself for mystical prayer. 'In order to reach this state, [the soul] will
frequently need to make use of meditation, quietly and in moderation'" (Merton, 8990).
Indeed, we might well find both meditative and contemplative elements in a single poem.
The above description reveals the basic, essential way a seventeenth-century writer
would regard both the via mystica and the significance of meditation and contemplation.

Evelyn Underhill details two more stages in addition to the time-honored threefold
division of Purgation, Illumination, and Union. We need not be concerned with Underhill's
preliminary stage of Awakening, which precedes Purgation, for our three poets, two of
them Anglican ministers, were undoubtedly awake to and believed in the reality of
divinity. But the additional, advanced purgative stage of the Dark Night of the Soul, which
follows Illumination and which Underhill bases primarily on the work of the great 16thcentury contemplative, St. John of the Cross, provides a refinement that will be of
particular value to the distinctions we will need to make with respect to Herbert and
especially Vaughan. A large part of Underhill's classic work on Mysticism is devoted to
describing the traditional mystic stages. For present purposes, it may suffice to quote
Underhill's introductory briefer description of the stages from Purgation to Union.


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The Self, aware of Divine Beauty, realizes by contrast its own finiteness and imperfection, the manifold illusions in
which it is immersed, the immense distance which separates it from the One. Its attempts to eliminate by discipline
and mortification all that stands in the way of its progress towards union with God constitute Purgation: a state of
pain and effort.
When by Purgation the Self has become detached from the "things of sense," and acquired those virtues which are
the "ornaments of the spiritual marriage," its joyful consciousness of the Transcendent Order returns in an
enhanced form. Like the prisoners in Plato's "Cave of Illusion," it has awakened to knowledge of Reality, has
struggled up the harsh and difficult path to the mouth of the cave. Now it looks upon the sun. This is Illumination: a
state which includes in itself many of the stages of contemplation, "degrees of orison," visions and adventures of
the soul described by St. Teresa and other mystical writers. These form, as it were, a way within the Way: a
moyen de parvenir, a training devised by experts which will strengthen and assist the mounting soul. They stand,
so to speak, for education; whilst the Way proper represents organic growth. Illumination is the contemplative state
par excellence. Many mystics never go beyond it; and, on the other hand, many seers and artists not usually
classed amongst them, have shared, to some extent, the experiences of the illuminated state. Illumination brings a
certain apprehension of the Absolute, a sense of the Divine Presence: but not true union with it. It is a state of
happiness.
In the development of the great and strenuous seekers after God, this is followedor sometimes intermittently

accompaniedby the most terrible of all the experiences of the Mystic Way: the final and complete purification of the
Self, which is called by some contemplatives the "mystic pain" or "mystic death," by others the Purification of the
Spirit or Dark Night of the Soul. The consciousness which had, in Illumination, sunned itself in the sense of the
Divine Presence, now suffers under an equally intense sense of the Divine Absence: learning to dissociate the
personal satisfaction of mystical vision from the reality of mystical life. As in Purgation the sense were cleansed and
humbled, and the energies and interests of the Self were concentrated upon transcendental things: so now the
purifying process is extended to the very centre of I-hood, the will. The human instinct for personal happiness must
be killed. This is the "spiritual crucifixion" so often described by the mystics: the great desolation in which the soul
seems abandoned by the Divine. The Self now surrenders itself, its individuality, and its will, completely. It desires
nothing, asks nothing, is utterly passive, and is thus prepared for
Union: the true goal of the mystic quest. In this state the Absolute


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Life is not merely perceived and enjoyed by the Self, as in Illumination: but is one with it. This is the end towards
which all the previous oscillations of consciousness have tended. It is a state of equilibrium, or purely spiritual life;
characterized by peaceful joy, by enhanced powers, by intense certitude. (169170)

Although Christianity has been insistently monotheistic over against the polytheism of
paganism, the Church does recognize what may mistakenly appear to some as a kind of
pantheism. Strictly speaking, it is not pantheism but the omnipresence of the one God
that is recognized. An important factor of the mystic experience is the discovery of the
immanence and/or transcendence of God. To the catechism question "Where is God?" the
proper response is "everywhere." To the enlightened mystic, when the veils of custom,
convention and selfish solicitude are removed and the third eye opened, God appears in
the features and faces of human beings and in the forms of Nature as well as being
wholly transcendent. Hence, mystical experiences may be "extrovertive," aware of
immanent divinity through the redeemed senses, or "introvertive," conscious of
transcendent divinity beyond all the senses. In his admirable and lucid discussion of
world-wide mysticism, Mysticism and Philosophy W. T. Stace introduces these terms,

which correspond to terminology used by Rudolf Otto and Evelyn Underhill, and he adds
that both the extravertive or outward and introvertive or inward experiences "culminate
in the perception of an ultimate Unitywhat Plotinus called the Onewith which the
perceiver realizes his own union or even identity. But the extrovertive mystic, using his
physical sense, perceives the multiplicity of external material objects mystically
transfigured so that the One, or the Unity, shines through them. The introvertive mystic,
on the contrary, seeks by deliberately shutting off the senses, by obliterating from
consciousness the entire multiplicity of sensations, images, and thoughts, to plunge into
the depths of his own [self]. There, in that darkness and silence, he alleges that he
perceives the Oneand is united with it'' (6162). By examining the detailed evidence from
both Western and Eastern mysticism, Stace is able to present a list of characteristics, like
lists by other writers on the subject, of both types of mystical experience.
In the extrovertive type, the primary and central point around which all other
"characteristics revolve is the apprehension of a unity taken to be in some way basic to
the universe," frequently though not altogether satisfactorily expressed in the formula "All
is


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One." "The One is perceived through the physical senses, in or through the multiplicity of
objects" (79). From this first characteristic, the second follows: "the more concrete
apprehension of the One as an inner subjectivity, or life, in all things" (131).
In the introvertive type, the nuclear characteristic is "the Unitary Consciousness, from
which all the multiplicity of sensuous or conceptual or other empirical content has been
excluded, so that there remains only a void and empty unity" (110). Inevitably following
from this primary point is the second characteristic of being nonspatial and nontemporal.
The remaining characteristics of both extrovertive and introvertive mystical experiences
are identical for both:
3.Sense of objectivity or reality

4.Feelings of blessedness, joy, peace, happiness, etc.
5.Feeling that what is apprehended is holy, sacred, or divine
6.Paradoxicality
7.Alleged ineffability (79, 110, 131).
To this, we should add three qualifications: the extrovertive type may also exhibit the
characteristic of timelessness; a serious omission from Stace's account, as R. C. Zaehner
remarks, is love, which we will include along with feelings of blessedness, joy, etc.; 3 and
a complex mystical experience may exhibit both extrovertive and introvertive elements.
Generally, contemplative experience is distinguishable as being of one type or the other.
But many mystics have both extrovertive and introvertive mystical experiences,
sometimes on different occasions, sometimes on the same occasion. Often, one type of
mystical experience will lead or predispose a contemplative to the other type.
Whether a mystic experiences one or the other type may depend on (or perhaps it
determines) the extent of Platonism or Aristotelianism in his thinking. Plato and some but
by no means all Neoplatonists almost exclusively or at least preferably incline toward
introvertive mystical experience and tend not to share the extrovertive Hebraic-Christian
praise of and joy in God's "very good" (Gen. 1:31) visible creation. When mystics write of
not being able to apprehend ultimate reality with the bodily, fleshly, or conventional eyes
or senses they are referring either to nonsensuous introvertive mysticism or to the
necessity of purgation so that eventually one may sensuously perceive ultimate reality
with a pure heart through cleansed senses. The idea that it is Christ who enables us to
see with purified hearts in either the introvertive or extrovertive way goes back to the


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earliest days of the Church. St. Clement of Rome, the first-century bishop and Apostolic
Father, whose Epistle to the Corinthians portrays an early Christianity of inwardness and
the Spirit and yet simultaneously of powerful brotherhood, observes that through Christ
"we see as in a mirror the spotless and excellent face of God: through him the eyes of our

hearts were opened" (Bettenson, The Early Christian Fathers, 29). In The City of God, St.
Augustine writes: "Thus, it was with his 'heart' that the Prophet says he saw. Now just
think, when God will be 'all in all,' how much greater will be this gift of vision in the hearts
of all! The eyes of the body will still retain their function and will be found where they
now are, and the spirit through its spiritual body will make use of the eyes" (trans. Walsh
et al, 535). Redeemed vision in extrovertive experience is seeing not with the senses,
but, as William Blake knew, with the heart through the cleansed senses. As opposed to
seeing objects in some generalized, rationalistic, abstract way, which ultimately comes to
thinking about rather than actually looking at them, contemplative extrovertive vision
means Christ in us seeing, means our seeing with fully open eyes rather than with closed
or indifferent eyes, seeing felicitously into the particular-universal suchness or quiddity of
an object with regenerated or enlightened heart and senses rather than seeing in such a
way as mentally to abstract an essence from the object, as if essence and object could
ever really (that is, in fact, not just in mind) be dualistically separated. Extrovertive
mystical experiences would therefore more likely give rise to (or arise out of, depending
on whether or not experience precedes philosophy) and Aristotelian rather than a Platonic
metaphysic, insofar as we understand Plato as asserting the separation of Forms and
matter and Aristotle as insisting upon the fusing of the universal form with the particular
material thing into the completely unity of the individual object. Contrariwise, introvertive
mystical experiences would more likely give rise to a Platonic rather than an Aristotelian
metaphysic. In other words, Plato puts emphasis on the transcendental nature of ultimate
reality; Aristotle stresses its immanence.
One of the important differences, then, between Platonism and Aristotelianism on the one
hand and Christian mystical theology on the other is that, whereas the former
philosophers tend to regard ultimate reality as either transcendent or immanent,
Christian mystics paradoxically see God as both transcendent and immanent. In this
sense, Christianity represents a synthesis of the two great ancient influences on Western
thought, a synthesis which is reflected in the apophatic (negative) and cataphatic
(affirmative) branches of

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Christian mystical theology, as discussed, for example, by Dionysius the Areopagite in
Chapter 3 of his Mystical Theology. Apophatic theology concerns the dark, non-senuous
relationship of the self and the ineffable God dwelling in Divine Darkness, concerns the
self's movement upwards or, better, inwards (an idea very familiar in Augustine) to the
transcendent God. Cataphatic theology concerns God's manifestation of his divinity to the
redeemed senses (or, as Augustine says, to the "heart") in and through the universe,
which God created and pronounced "very good." In the Divine Names, a work on what we
can say about God, Dionysius rather succinctly sums up cataphatic and apophatic
theology, epitomizes the mystic's experience of immanent divinity and of the wholly
transcendent Godhead: "God is known in all things, and apart from all things" (VII.3). In a
beautiful, paradoxical passage from his account of his search for God through the
memory, Augustine at greater length suggests the transcendent and perhaps also the
immanent discovery and love of God:
But what is it that I love when I love You? Not the beauty of any bodily thing, nor the order of the seasons, not
the brightness of light that rejoices the eye, nor the sweet melodies of all songs, nor the sweet fragrance of flowers
and ointments and spices; not manna or honey, not the limbs that carnal love embraces. None of these things do
I love in loving my God. Yet in a sense I do love light and melody and fragrance and food and embrace when I
love my Godthe light and the voice and the fragrance and the food and embrace in the soul, when the light shines
upon my soul which no place can contain, that voice sounds which no time can take from me, I breathe that
fragrance which no wind scatters, I eat the food which is not lessened by eating, and I lie in the embrace which
satiety never comes to sunder. This it is that I love, when I love my God. (Confessions, trans., F. J. Sheed, X, vi)

From the immanence and transcendence of the omnipresent God, it follows that at any
stage of the contemplative journey the "object" of the mystic may be any one of four
possibilities. (The word "object" is in quotation marks because in the mystical experience
the usual division between subject and object appears unreal or merely conventional;
subject and object, though mentally distinguishable, are experienced as actually one or at

least as inextricably interconnected.) First, if the "object" is the natural world or, more
usually, some particular part(s) of it, the mystical experience is designated, to employ W.
H. Auden's terminology, the Vision of Dame Kind, which medieval phrase we could render
in modern terms as Mother Nature. Secondly, if the "object" is another human being


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with whom the mystic shares erotic love, the experience is called a Vision of Eros.
(Needless to add, this does not mean that every sexual experience is a mystical one;
sexuality often exists without Eros; other criteria, including the presence of at least some
of the above-noted characteristics, must be satisfied as well for an experience to be
designated a Vision of Eros.) Thirdly, if the "object" is other individuals toward whom the
mystic feels not erotic but brotherly love, the term employed is the Vision of Philia. 4 And
fourthly, if the "object" is the transcendent divinity, the experience is named the Vision of
God. Auden's discussion of these four kinds of Vision, based upon consideration of
Catholic-Protestant contemplative tradition as it would be known to seventeenth-century
and later writers, introduces a book, The Protestant Mystics, which contains selections
from numerous Protestant mystics, including not only the Anglican poets Donne, Herbert,
Vaughan, and Traherne, but also such sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Protestant
writers as Martin Luther, Jakob Boehme, Samuel Rutherford, Jeremy Taylor, Richard
Baxter, and George Fox, as well as later Protestant mystics.
The first three Visions (of Dame Kind, Eros, and Philia) are primarily of the immanent or
extrovertive type. The Vision of God is of the transcendent or introvertive type. Because
the "object" of the Visions of Eros and Philia includes another human consciousness,
these Visions often display as well some introvertive characteristics, especially the
Unitary Consciousness. Although the Visions initially, as it were, differ in "object," in a
strict sense ultimately they do not: for it is God that is through the redeemed senses
sought in nature, the beloved, or other humans, just as it is God that is directly, inwardly,
sought in the Vision of God. And although the mystical stages of Purgation, Illumination,

Dark Night of the Soul, and Union usually are applied to the Vision of God, they may also
profitably be applied to the other Visions. In the stages of Purgation and Dark Night of
the Soul, the individual is painfully aware of the absence of the "object" of his vision. In
Illumination and Union, the mystic feels the presence of or is joyfully united to the
"object" of his Vision.
The end of purpose of passing through the stages of mysticism in one or another kind of
Vision is to effect a radical transformation of self, called "regeneration" or "rebirth";
movement through the stages is the regenerative progress. "Regeneration," as intended
here, is the heart of the contemplative experience and not just a Christian