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Henry Vaughan
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| Biography: Henry Vaughan |
The British poet Henry Vaughan (1621-1695), one of the finest poets of the metaphysical school, wrote verse marked by mystical intensity, sensitivity to nature, tranquility of tone, and power of wording.
Henry Vaughan was born in Brecknockshire, Wales. He and his twin brother Thomas received their early education in Wales and in 1638 matriculated at Jesus College, Oxford. Unlike his brother, who remained to receive a degree and become a noted philosopher, Henry left Oxford without a degree to pursue a law career in London. At the outbreak of the civil war in 1642, Vaughan returned to Wales, occupied himself in the law, and then entered military service in the royalist cause. Later in life he practiced medicine, and he probably studied it during these years.
Vaughan apparently began writing poetry in the same decade. In 1646 he published his Poems, half of which consisted of a translation of Juvenal's tenth satire. The next year he wrote the preface to a second volume, Olor Iscanus (The Swan of Usk), which did not appear until 1651; like the earlier volume, it comprises secular poems and translations and shows little inspiration. In 1648 he seems to have undergone a religious conversion, perhaps connected with the death of a brother that year.
The major poetry of Vaughan, all religious in nature, was published in 1650 and 1655 in the two parts of Silex scintillans (Sparkling Flint). Some of the best poems in it are "The Morning Watch, " "The Retreat, " "Childhood, " "The Dawning, " and "Peace." He published more religious verse and prose in his later years, and a number of translations, but nothing after the great volumes of the 1650s retains much interest. He died in Wales on April 23, 1695.
Vaughan is a poet in whom it is easy to trace the influence of others, particularly the wit of John Donne and the quiet, understated, dramatic technique of George Herbert, to whom he credited his religious conversion. At its weakest Vaughan's verse is too plainly derivative, and not infrequently a poem remains valuable today for no more than a stanza or a line. At his best, however - a best that created some of the most beautiful lyrics in English poetry - his voice is profoundly personal, and his ability to maintain the emotional tension of a poem can be impressive. Much of his power derives from a mystical Christian Neoplatonism that he does not share with his poetic masters and that reveals itself in images of dazzling light, in cosmic visions, and in a fusion of Platonic concepts, such as the descent of man from the "sea of light" of his childhood to an alienated adulthood, expressed in biblical motifs, images, and language. His genius can best be suggested by the opening of "The World, " in which a mystical vision is successfully conveyed in the boldest tone of understatement: "I saw eternity the other night/ Like a great ring of pure and endless light, / All calm as it was bright…."
Further Reading
The standard biography of Vaughan is Francis E. Hutchinson, Henry Vaughan: A Life and Interpretation (1947). Good critical accounts are in Helen C. White, The Metaphysical Poets: A Study in Religious Experience (1936); Douglas Bush, English Literature of the Earlier Seventeenth Century (1945; 2d ed. 1962), the best source for information on literary backgrounds as well; and Joan Bennett, Five Metaphysical Poets (1964).
Additional Sources
Davies, Stevie, Henry Vaughan, Bridgend, Mid Glamorgan, Wales: Seren; Chester Springs, PA: U.S. distributor, Dufour Editions, 1995.
| British History: Henry Vaughan |
Vaughan, Henry (1622-95). Poet and mystic. After two years at Oxford, Vaughan commenced legal training in London but returned home to Breconshire at the outbreak of war in 1642. He began to publish poetry in 1646, but George Herbert's influence led to rejection of ‘idle books’, and it is for his religious poems that he is now best known. Silex Scintillans (‘The Glittering Flint’, 1650, Part II 1655) and the prose The Mount of Olives (1652) reflect his spiritual rapture and fresh creativeness.
| Dictionary of Dance: David Vaughan |
Vaughan, David (b London, 17 May 1924). British dancer, administrator, archivist, and writer. He studied dance with Rambert and Audrey de Vos in London and at the School of American Ballet in New York, and with Tudor and Cunningham. He settled in the US in 1950 and was co-founder with James Waring of Dance Associates in 1951. He danced with the companies of Shirley Broughton, Louis Johnson, Katherine Litz, Paul Taylor, and Waring. He was associated with Merce Cunningham for more than 30 years, as administrator of the Cunningham Studio, as company tour manager, and from 1976 as archivist of the Cunningham Dance Foundation. Author of The Royal Ballet at Covent Garden (1975), Frederick Ashton and his Ballets (London, 1977), and Merce Cunningham: Fifty Years (New York, 1997); co-author (with Mary Clarke) of The Encyclopedia of Dance and Ballet (London, 1977).
| Columbia Encyclopedia: Henry Vaughan |
Vaughan, Henry (vôn), 1622-95, one of the English metaphysical poets. Born in Breconshire, Wales, he signed himself Silurist, after the ancient inhabitants of that region. After leaving Oxford, where he did not take a degree, he turned to the study of law. Later he switched to medicine and spent his life as a highly respected physician. His greatest poetry is contained in Silex Scintillans (1650; second part, 1655), which includes "The Ascension Hymn," "The World," "Quickness," "The Retreat," and "They are all gone into the world of light." Though he openly admitted his indebtedness to George Herbert, where Herbert celebrates the institution of the Church, Vaughan is more interested in natural objects and in a mystical communion with nature. Vaughan's other works include Poems (1646), Olor Iscanus (1651), Thalia Rediviva (1678), The Mount of Olives (1652), and Flores Solitudinis (1654).
Bibliography
See edition of his works edited by L. C. Martin (2d ed. 1957); complete poems edited by A. Rudrum (1981); biography by F. E. Hutchinson (1947); studies by E. Holmes (1932, repr. 1967), R. Garner (1959), R. A. Durr (1962), T. O. Calhoun (1981).
| Quotes By: Henry Vaughan |
Quotes:
"Man hath still either toys or care: But hath no root, nor to one place is tied, but ever restless and irregular, about this earth doth run and ride. He knows he hath a home, but scarce knows where; He says it is so far, that he has quite forgot how to go there"
"They are all gone into the world of light, and I alone sit lingering here."
"Caesar had perished from the world of men, had not his sword been rescued by his pen."
"So stick up ivy and the bays, and then restore the heathen ways, green will remind you of the Spring, though this great day denies the thing, and mortifies the earth, and all, but your wild revels, and loose hall."
| Wikipedia: Henry Vaughan |
For other persons named Henry Vaughan, see Henry Vaughan (disambiguation).
| Henry Vaughan | |
|---|---|
| Born | April 17, 1622 Newton St. Briget, Brecknockshire, Wales |
| Died | April 23, 1695 (aged 74) Scethrog, Brecknockshire, Wales |
| Occupation | Poet |
| Nationality | Welsh |
| Ethnicity | Welsh |
| Writing period | 17th century |
| Genres | Poetry |
| Notable work(s) | The World |
| Spouse(s) | Catherine Vaughan, Elizabeth Vaughan |
| Relative(s) | Thomas Vaughan |
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Henry Vaughan (April 17, 1622 − April 23, 1695) was a Welsh physician and metaphysical poet.
Vaughan and his twin brother, the hermetic philosopher and alchemist Thomas Vaughan, were the sons of Thomas Vaughan and Denise Morgan[1] of 'Trenewydd', Newton, in Brecknockshire, Wales.[2]
Vaughan spent most of his life in the village of Llansantffraed, near Brecon, where he is also buried.
Contents |
Early life
Both Henry and his twin Thomas were schooled locally by the rector of Llangattock (Crickhowell), the Rev. Matthew Herbert. This occupied six years preceding their attendance at Jesus College, Oxford, England in 1638.[3]: s9, p.21 However, around 1640, Vaughan's family influenced him to pursue a career in law[4]:p39 to the abandonment of an Oxford degree.
As the Civil War developed, he was recalled home from London, initially to serve as a secretary to Sir Marmaduke Lloyd, a chief justice on the Brecknockshire circuit and staunch royalist. Military service interrupted his study of the law and, upon his return, Vaughan began to practise medicine. By 1646, he had married Catherine Wise with whom he reared a son, Thomas, and three daughters, Lucy, Frances, and Catherine. After his first wife's death, he married her sister, Elizabeth.[5]
Secular works
Vaughan took his literary inspiration from his native environment and chose the descriptive name "Silurist," derived from his homage to the Silures, the Celtic tribe of pre-Roman south Wales which strongly resisted the Romans. This name is a reflection of the deep love Vaughan felt towards the Welsh mountains of his home in what is now part of the Brecon Beacons National Park and the River Usk valley where he spent most of his early life and professional life.
By 1647 Henry Vaughan, with his wife and children, had chosen life in the country. This is the setting in which Vaughan wrote Olor Iscanus, the (Swan of Usk). However, this collection was not published until 1651, more than three years after it was written. It is believed that there was great crisis in Vaughan's life between the authorship and publication of Olor Iscanus.[6] During these years, his grandfather William Vaughan died and he was evicted from his living in Llansantffraed. Vaughan later decried the publication, having "long ago condemned these poems to obscurity".
Olor Iscanus is filled with odd words and similes that beg for attention despite its dark and morbid cognitive appeal. This work is founded on crises felt in Vaughan's homeland, Brecknockshire. During the Civil War, there was never a major battle fought on the ground of Brecknockshire, but the effects of the war were deeply felt by Vaughan and his surrounding community. The Puritan Parliament visited misfortune on the community, ejecting many of their foes, the Anglicans and Royalists. This was an obvious source of misfortune for Vaughan, who also lost his home at that time.[4]:p40
There is a distinct difference between the atmosphere Vaughan attempts to convey in this work and in his most famous work, Silex Scintillans. Olor Iscanus is a direct representation of a specific period in Vaughan's life, which emphasizes other secular writers and provides allusions to debt and happy living. A fervent topic of Vaughan throughout these poems is the Civil War and reveals Vaughan's somewhat paradoxical thinking that, in the end, gives no clear conclusion to the question of his participation in the Civil War. Vaughan states his complete satisfaction of being clean on "innocent blood" but also provides what seem to be eyewitness accounts of battles and his own "soldiery". Although Vaughan is thought to have been a royalist, these poems express contempt for all current authority and a lack of zeal for the royalist cause.[3]: s9, p.21 His poems generally reflect a sense of severe decline, which possibly means that Vaughan lamented the effects of the war on the monarchy and society. His short poem "The Timber", ostensibly about a dead tree, concludes "thy strange resentment after death / Means only those who broke - in life - thy peace."
Conversion
The period shortly preceding the publication of Henry Vaughan's Silex Scintillans marked an important period of his life. Certain indications in the first volume and explicit statements made in the preface to the second volume of Silex Scintillans suggest that Vaughan suffered a prolonged sickness that inflicted much pain. Vaughan interprets this experience to be an encounter with death and a wake-up call to his "misspent youth". Vaughan believes he is spared to make amends and start a new course not only in his life but in the literature he would produce. Vaughan himself describes his previous work as foul and a contribution to "corrupt literature". Perhaps the most notable mark of Vaughan's conversion is how much it is credited to George Herbert. Vaughan claims that he is the least of Herbert's many "pious converts"[3]. It is during this period of Vaughan's life, around 1650, that he adopts the saying "moriendo, revixi", meaning "by dying, I gain new life". [4]:p132
George Herbert
It was not until Vaughan's conversion and the writing of Silex Scintillans that he received significant acclaim. He was greatly indebted to George Herbert, who provided a model for Vaughan's newly founded spiritual life and literary career[3], in which he displayed "spiritual quickening and the gift of gracious feeling"[7]:p2 derived from Herbert.
Archbishop Trench has proposed that "As a divine Vaughan may be inferior [to Herbert], but as a poet he is certainly superior"[7]:p2. Critics praise Vaughan's use of literary elements. Vaughan's use of monosyllables, long-drawn alliterations and his ability to compel the reader places Vaughan as "more than the equal of George Herbert". Yet others say that the two are not even comparable, because Herbert is in fact the Master. While these critics admit that Henry Vaughan's use of words can be superior to Herbert's, they believe his poetry is, in fact, worse. Herbert's profundity as well as consistency are said to be the key to his superiority[7]:p4.
While the superiority or inferiority of Vaughan and Herbert is a question with no distinct answer, one cannot deny that Vaughan would have never written the way he did without Herbert's direction. The explicit spiritual influence of Herbert on Henry Vaughan[4]:p2 is undeniable. The preface to Vaughan's Silex Scintillans does all but proclaim this influence. The prose of Vaughan exemplifies this as well. For instance, The Temple, by Herbert, is often seen as the inspiration and blueprints through which Vaughan modelled to create his work. Silex Scintillans is most often classed with this collection of Herbert's. Silex Scintillans borrows the same themes, experience, and beliefs as The Temple. Herbert's influence is evident both in the shape and spirituality of Vaughan's poetry. For example, the opening to Vaughan's poem 'Unprofitableness':
- How rich, O Lord! How fresh thy visits are!
is reminiscent of Herbert's 'The Flower':
- How fresh, O Lord, how sweet and clean
- Are thy returns! ev'n as the flowers in spring
Another work of Vaughan's that clearly parallels George Herbert is Mount of Olives, e.g., the passage, Let sensual natures judge as they please, but for my part, I shall hold it no paradoxe to affirme, there are no pleasures in the world. Some coloured griefes of blushing woes there are, which look as clear as if they were true complexions; but it is very sad and tyred truth, that they are but painted. This echoes Herbert's Rose[4]:p2:
- In this world of sugar's lies,
- And to use a larger measure
- Than my strict yet welcome size.
- First, there is no pleasure here:
- Coloure'd griefs indeed there are,
- Blushing woes that look as clear,
- As if they could beauty spare.
Critics have complained that Vaughan is enslaved to Herbert's works, using similar "little tricks" such as abrupt introductions and whimsical titles as a framework for his own work, and that he "failed to learn" from Herbert. Vaughan carried an inability to know his limits and focused more on the intensity of the poem, meanwhile losing the attention of his audience[7]:pp5-6.
However, Alexander Grosart denies that Henry Vaughan was solely an imitator of George Herbert (Grosart, 3). There are moments in Vaughan's writings where the reader can identify Vaughan's true self, rather than an imitation of Herbert. In such passages Vaughan is seen to demonstrate naturalness, immediacy, and ability to relate the concrete through poetry[4]:p63. In some instances, Vaughan derives observations from Herbert's language that are distinctly his own. It is as if Vaughan takes proprietorship of some of Herbert's work, yet makes it completely unique to himself[4]:p66.
In these times he shows himself different from any other poet. Much of his distinction derives from an apparent lack of sympathy with the world around him. His aloof appeal to his surroundings detaches him and encourages his love of nature and mysticism, which in turn influenced other later poets, Wordsworth among others. Vaughan's mind thinks in terms of a physical and spiritual world and the obscure relation between the two[4]:p132. Vaughan's mind often moved to original, unfamiliar, and remote places, and this reflected in his poetry. He was loyal to the themes of the Anglican Church and religious festivals, but found his true voice in the more mystical themes of eternity, communion with the dead, nature, and childhood. Much of Vaughan's poetry has a particularly modern sound.
Henry Vaughan takes another step away from George Herbert in the manner to which he presents his poetry to the reader. George Herbert in The Temple, which is most often the source of comparison between the two writers, lays down explicit instructions on the reading of his work. This contrasts with the attitude of Vaughan, who considered the experience of reading as the best guide to his meanings. He promoted no special method of reading his works [4]:p140.
Vaughan elaborated on personal loss in two well-known poems, "The World" and "They Are All Gone in the World of Light." Another poem, "The Retreat," combines the theme of loss with the corruption of childhood, which is yet another consistent theme of Vaughan's. Vaughan's newfound personal voice and persona are seen as the result of the death of a younger brother.
This is an example of an especially beautiful fragment of one of his poems entitled "The World:"
- I saw eternity the other night
- Like a great ring of pure and endless light,
- All calm as it was bright,
- And round beneath it time in hours, days, years,
- Driven by the spheres,
- Like a vast shadow moved in which the world
- And all her train were hurled.
Death and legacy
As is the case with many great writers and poets, Henry Vaughan was acclaimed less during his lifetime than after his death on April 23, 1695, aged 74. He is buried in the churchyard of St Bridget's, Llansantffraed, Powys. He is recognised as having influenced the work of poets such as Wordsworth, Tennyson and Siegfried Sassoon.
Works
- Poems with the Tenth Satire of Juvenal Englished
- Peace
- Olor Iscanus
- Silex Scintillans
- Silex Scintillans II
- Mount of Olives
- Flores Solitudinis
- Hermetical Physics
- The Chemist's Key
- Humane Industry
- Thalia Rediviva
- The World
- The Retreat
See also
Notes
- ^ Powys Literary Links - Henry Vaughan BBC mid Wales, 3 Jan 2006
- ^ VAUGHAN family, of Tretower Court in Welsh Biography Online, at National Library of Wales. William Vaughan's children included THOMAS VAUGHAN (d. 1658), who m. the heiress of Newton in Llansantffraed; Henry Vaughan the Silurist (q.v.) and Thomas Vaughan (q.v.) were their sons.
- ^ a b c d Ward A. W. and Waller A. R. (Ed.) The Sacred Poets in The Cambridge History of English and American Literature, Vol 7
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Calhoun, Thomas O. Henry Vaughan: The Achievement of the Silex Scintillans. New Jersey: Associated University Presses, Inc, 1981.
- ^ Vaughan, Henry in Welsh Biography Online, at National Library of Wales
- ^ His conversion in The Cambridge History of English and American Literature
- ^ a b c d Grosart, Rev. Alexander B. (ed.). Essay on the Life and Writings of Henry Vaughan, Silurist --in The Works in Verse and Prose Complete of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Vol. II. London UK: Gale 1995. pp. ix-ci Blackburn, 1871, reprinted in Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800, Vol. 27, ed. Person J E.
References
- Calhoun, Thomas O Henry Vaughan: The Achievement of the Silex Scintillans. Associated University Presses, Inc, 1981. East Brunswick, New Jersey.
- Fisch Harold The Dual Image. London: World Jewish Library, 1971, p. 41, Katz, Philo-Semitism, pp. 185-86.
- Grosart Rev. Alexander B. (ed.) "Essay on the Life and Writings of Henry Vaughan, Silurist" in The Works in Verse and Prose Complete of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Vol. II. Blackburn, 1871, pp. ix-ci. Reprinted in Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800, Vol. 27.
- Hutchinson F. E. The Works of George Herbert. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1945; to Henry Vaughan from the edition by The Works of Henry Vaughan, L.C. Martin, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2nd edn., 1957.
- Matar, Nabil I George Herbert, Henry Vaughan, and the Conversion of the Jews. Studies in English Literature (Rice), 00393657, Winter 90, Vol. 30, Issue 1
- Sullivan Ceri The Rhetoric of the Conscience in Donne, Herbert, and Vaughan. Oxford University Press, 2008
External links
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- Complete Works of Henry Vaughan (Anonymous website)
- Henry Vaughan (PoetSeers website)
- Index entry for Henry Vaughan at Poets' Corner
- The Sacred Poets. Ch. 9-13 − The Cambridge History of English and American Literature.
- Henry Vaughan at Find a Grave
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