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At a time when poetry has little regard for anything beyond the
commonplace realities of everyday perception and sentiment, these
studies propose a restoration of balance as between outer and inner
worlds. For too long, in the wake of our attempt at a rational,
scientific civilization, it has been readily assumed that the
centre of gravity of reality and truth falls within the realm of
the physical world. But for the poets discussed in these pages the
opposite is the case. For them the centre of gravity of the Real
and the True decidedly falls within the spiritual world, the
'other', 'hidden' domain which has immemorially been the source of
enduring values and meanings. So, in the nature of things, it must
remain. It is not a question of making a case for these poets as
being inspired mystics or visionaries (though they are hardly
without inspiration and vision). It is more a question of
discerning to what extent they participate imaginatively in the
realities of Spirit made comprehensible by the revealed traditions.
We do not turn to poets for the formulation of doctrine and
principle, but we might yet find in their work resonances of the
True in the beauties of measured speech and how we are even now
among intimations of the abiding good in the human condition. What
these poets have in common is that they invoke an image of man as
being only fully human insofar as he can attach himself to
realities which transcend the human state as such. It is part of
the contention of these pages that, if the imaginative vision of
these poets belongs to an outmoded cultural phrase, if they are
perceived to be trafficking in a knowledge that has been
superseded, then it follows that most of the culture of the past
must now the jettisoned as one would any obsolete junk.
Spiritually, the reckoning is that decisive. Now that the ruins of
a failed, secular culture are everywhere evident, the imaginative
vision of these poets can renew and refresh our perception of the
human vocation. -from the Preface
As the title suggests, we are here addressing the most fundamental
questions: Who is man? What is art? What is the bond that unites
man, nature and art? The argument at the heart of this book is that
what should be common to all men and women-a natural affinity with
the sacred that holds out the promise of spiritual experience in
everyday life- is in fact made all but impossible by the very
nature of modern society. For what the modern world has set in
place is nothing other than a pattern of life that prevents us from
being what we truly are. The destruction of man that is part and
parcel of the scientific, industrial view of our destiny cannot do
otherwise than in turn destroy those values and meanings that have
always been the bedrock of normal human existence. At a time when
the inadequacy of modernism has become apparent, the author returns
to the challenge of the English radical tradition of thought
(Blake, Cobbett, Carlyle, Ruskin, Morris, Gill and others), with
its critique of the industrial-now post-industrial-way of life.
Through a series of highly original studies of several major
English artists and craftsman, and by addressing key themes that
relate to the spiritual, cultural and environmental crisis that now
confronts us, the author offers a positive development of the
radical perspective. Can modern man survive the process of
self-mutilation he has embarked upon? In this unique study of our
present predicament, the author suggests we cannot do so by turning
our back on the perennial wisdom that has always informed the
wisest philosophies of life, with their intuition of the sacred
nature of reality.
At a time when poetry has little regard for anything beyond the
commonplace realities of everyday perception and sentiment, these
studies propose a restoration of balance as between outer and inner
worlds. For too long, in the wake of our attempt at a rational,
scientific civilization, it has been readily assumed that the
centre of gravity of reality and truth falls within the realm of
the physical world. But for the poets discussed in these pages the
opposite is the case. For them the centre of gravity of the Real
and the True decidedly falls within the spiritual world, the
'other', 'hidden' domain which has immemorially been the source of
enduring values and meanings. So, in the nature of things, it must
remain. It is not a question of making a case for these poets as
being inspired mystics or visionaries (though they are hardly
without inspiration and vision). It is more a question of
discerning to what extent they participate imaginatively in the
realities of Spirit made comprehensible by the revealed traditions.
We do not turn to poets for the formulation of doctrine and
principle, but we might yet find in their work resonances of the
True in the beauties of measured speech and how we are even now
among intimations of the abiding good in the human condition. What
these poets have in common is that they invoke an image of man as
being only fully human insofar as he can attach himself to
realities which transcend the human state as such. It is part of
the contention of these pages that, if the imaginative vision of
these poets belongs to an outmoded cultural phrase, if they are
perceived to be trafficking in a knowledge that has been
superseded, then it follows that most of the culture of the past
must now the jettisoned as one would any obsolete junk.
Spiritually, the reckoning is that decisive. Now that the ruins of
a failed, secular culture are everywhere evident, the imaginative
vision of these poets can renew and refresh our perception of the
human vocation. -from the Preface
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