Henry Vaughan and the Book of Nature

The new records of 10 rare moss species of sanctuary “Vaaramaenselka Ridge” (Leningrad Region) are given. New data on the 2 moss species [Homalothecium sericeum (Hedw.) Bruch et al., Mnium hormun Hedw.] included in Red Data Book of Nature of the Leningrad Region are obtained.

Download Full-text

Discipleship Misunderstanding and Johannine Irony in the Poetry of George Herbert and Henry Vaughan

10.1093/oso/9780198808718.003.0007 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Paul Cefalu

Keyword(s):

George Herbert ◽

Key Features ◽

Henry Vaughan

The sixth chapter takes a closer look at the influence of Johannine discipleship misunderstanding (particularly the Johannine rhetoric of dramatic irony) on the poetry of George Herbert and Henry Vaughan. Through close readings of Herbert’s “The Bag,” “The Bunch of Grapes,” and “Love unknown,” as well as Vaughan’s “The Night,” the chapter argues that both poets rely on Johannine-inspired dramatic irony in order to express some of the key features of Johannine devotion, especially a high Christology that glorifies rather than abases Jesus. In most cases, especially in Herbert’s poetry, dramatic irony leads not to instability or paradox but to a clarification and heightened understanding of some of the deepest mysteries of Johannine Christology.

Download Full-text

Johannine Dualism, Antinomianism, and Early Modern English Radical Dissent

10.1093/oso/9780198808718.003.0006 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Paul Cefalu

Keyword(s):

Seventeenth Century ◽

Early Modern ◽

Political Theology ◽

Fourth Gospel ◽

Richard Crashaw ◽

Broad Group ◽

Early Modern English ◽

Henry Vaughan

Johannine theology exerts a wide influence on a broad group of antinomian writers and mid-seventeenth-century English separatists, including the Familists, Diggers, Quakers, and a range of English mystics and spiritual enthusiasts. This chapter looks closely at the embrace of the most dualistic and eschatological passages of the Fourth Gospel and First Epistle by the English radical tradition. After an outline of the distinctive qualities of this Johannine political theology, the chapter turns to the antinomian influence on two radically different English poets, Richard Crashaw and Henry Vaughan. If Crashaw shows antinomian leanings despite his embrace of Laudian fundamentals, Vaughan emerges as something of an anti-enthusiast in his more politically topical poems of Silex Scintillans.

Download Full-text

God is Love

10.1093/oso/9780198808718.003.0005 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Paul Cefalu

Keyword(s):

Early Modern ◽

George Herbert ◽

Broad Group ◽

Early Modern English ◽

God's Love ◽

1 John ◽

Thomas Traherne ◽

Henry Vaughan

The fourth chapter describes the extent to which Augustine as well as a broad group of early modern homilists and poets were influenced by the ontological conception of love described in John’s First Epistle: “God is love, and hee that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him” (1 John 4: 16). For John, responsive love expressed toward God is achieved fundamentally through an embrace of Christ’s Word, particularly because God’s love for Christ is expressed eternally for the Son prior to the Incarnation. This chapter addresses the unique ways in which three early modern English poets—George Herbert, Henry Vaughan, and Thomas Traherne—appropriate the Johannine understanding of agape and an ontological conception of God’s love.

Download Full-text