Synopsis
In Scintilla 21 we continue this journal’s tradition of exploring and extending the literary legacy of the Vaughan brothers and their literal and figurative poetic peers. These identical twins, who were shaped by the beauty of the Breconshire of their youth, continually returned to their memories of the Usk river valley with its unique features: gently rolling hills and dense groves filled with flora and fauna, stones and rivers, history and myths. This landscape ignited their imaginations, as they sought to endure the social and political changes that swirled around them in seventeenth-century England. Their experiences with the horror of civil unrest, the erasure of familiar political and religious institutions, the struggle to retain identity and continuity, all marked these writers and their works. As Henry and Thomas reinvented themselves (Henry as ‘Silurist’ and Thomas as ‘Eugenius Philalethes’), their creative works explored the relationships among identity, adversity, and the creative processes in their writing. Scintilla continues that tradition of probing these conjunctions and crossing boundaries between past and present; between place and vision; between our physical environment and our inner lives; between metaphysical experiences and the concrete language of science, poetry, and healing. We are honored that Rowan Williams opens this issue with a consideration of the relationship between Henry Vaughan’s poetry his twin brother Thomas’ cosmology. In his exploration of the definition of the metaphysical, Williams reveals the Vaughan brothers’ ability to help the soul “grow as it ought” and see “what it should.” In a similar vein, Robert Wilcher examines the arc of Henry Vaughan’s poetic development to explain what kind of poet Vaughan strove to be and what kind of reality he proffers in his poetry. Wilcher’s analysis suggests that in his rejection of Jonsonian tradition, Vaughan transitions to a poetry of faith, marked by his belief that the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is what makes it possible for the Christian poet to create art. Honoring Welsh poetry has served as a foundational element of this journal’s mission, and Sean McDowell participates in that tradition through his detailing the influence of the Welsh poetic heritage on Henry Vaughan’s poetry. McDowell dispels the myth that many of Vaughan’s poems demonstrate an architectural instability. Through his technical analysis of Vaughan’s images and rhyming patterns, McDowell highlights the poet’s careful attention to linguistic detail, his deep sensitivity to verbal sounds, and layers of introspection as markers of his close ties to the Welsh bardic tradition. In the spirit of associating Henry Vaughan with his poetic peers, Jonathan Naumann investigates the means by which Vaughan reinvents images, employs devotional pastiche, and sublimates poetic excellence to devotional discipline in his efforts to emulate the work of George Herbert. As it has for the past decade, Scintilla continues to extend its reach exploring the variety of poets and thinkers who write in the metaphysical tradition. Scintilla 20 offers important reflections, not only on poets such as Henry Vaughan and David Jones who have frequently been subjects of interest in our pages, but introduces a number of lesser known poetic voices.
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