Thomas Traherne
Encyclopedia
Thomas Traherne, MA
(1636 or 1637 – ca. 27 September 1674) was an English poet and religious writer. His style is often considered Metaphysical
.
and Brasenose College, Oxford
, in 1652, achieving an MA
in arts and divinity nine years later. After receiving his degree in 1656 he took holy orders
and worked for ten years as a parish priest in Credenhill
, near Hereford. In 1667 he became minister at Teddington
and private chaplain to Sir Orlando Bridgeman, the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal
to Charles II
. He died at Bridgeman's house at Teddington on or about 27 September 1674 and is buried in St Mary's Church under the reading desk.
His poems have a curious history. They were left in manuscript
and presumably passed with the rest of his library into the hands of his brother Philip. They then apparently passed into the possession of the Skipps family of Ledbury, Herefordshire
. When the property of this family was dispersed in 1888 the value of the manuscripts was unrecognised, for in 1896 or 1897 they were discovered by W. T. Brooke on a street bookstall. Alexander Grosart bought them, and proposed to include them in his edition of the works of Henry Vaughan
, to whom he was convinced the writings belonged. He left this task uncompleted, and Bertram Dobell, who eventually secured the manuscripts, discerned that the author had attended Oxford University. He was then able to establish the authorship of Thomas Traherne.
The discoveries responsible for his renewed vindication as a theologian, beside the poems, are the Centuries of Meditations, a collection of short paragraphs or meditations reflecting on Christian life and ministry, philosophy, happiness, desire and childhood. These are gathered in groups of a hundred, four complete centuries and an unfinished fifth. Some of these, evidently autobiographical in character, describe a childhood from which the "glory and the dream" was slow to depart. Of the power of nature to inform the mind with beauty, and the ecstatic harmony of a child with the natural world, the earlier poems, which contain his best work, are full. In their manner, as in their matter, they remind the reader of William Blake
and William Wordsworth
. The poems on childhood may well have been inspired by Vaughan's lines entitled The Retreat. He quotes George Herbert
's "Longing" in the newly discovered Lambeth Manuscript.
His poems were published in The Poetical Works (1903) and Poems of Felicity (1910). The Centuries appeared in 1908; The Select Meditations were only published in 1997. In 1996 and 1997, another of Traherne’s manuscripts were discovered in the Folger Library in Washington DC by Julia Smith and Laetitia Yeandle. A second was discovered in Lambeth Palace Library in London by Jeremy Maule. The Ceremonial Law, from the Folger library, is an unfinished epic poem of over 1,800 lines. The Lambeth Manuscript contains four, and a fragmentary fifth, mainly prose works known as: Inducements to Retiredness, A Sober View of Dr Twisse, Seeds of Eternity, The Kingdom of God and the fragment Love. For accounts of these discoveries see the Times Literary Supplement articles by Julia Smith and Laetitia Yeandle (7 November 1997) and Denise Inge and Cal Macfarlane (2 June 2000). These two finds are a primary contributing factor to why Traherne is now being considered as much as a theologian as a poet.
and probably the most celebratory of all of them. Although his links with Neo-Platonism and the Cambridge Platonists have been much noted, he also drew on the writings of Aristotle and on the Early Church Fathers for his concept of Man. His writing expresses an ardent, almost childlike love of God, similar to that of Gerard Manley Hopkins
, and a firm belief in man's relation to and creation from divinity. He introduced a child’s viewpoint unknown or certainly unappreciated at the time, as Puritans were the dominant religious group of England during his lifetime. His poetry frequently explores the glory of creation and what he perceived as his intimate relationship with God. Little mention is made of sin and suffering in the works that dominated 20th century criticism, and some have seen his verse as bordering upon pantheism
(or perhaps panentheism
). However, recent discoveries such as the Select Meditations, Inducements to Retiredness and A Sober View of Dr Twisse contain both discussions of church doctrines surrounding the question of sin, and moments of personal confession. These discussions are, however, far less dour and damning than one would expect to find in similar works of the period by Puritan
or Catholic
theologians. The following passage, from Centuries of Meditation, illustrates just how little focus Traherne placed on the subject of sin in that work:
And yet, in the newly discovered work A Sober View of Dr Twisse—a work devoted to the question of election and reprobation—he writes:
"He was excluded the Kingdom of Heaven, where nothing can enter that hates God, and whence nothing can be excluded that loves him. The loss of that Love is Hell: the Sight and Possession of that Love is Heaven. Thus did sin exclude him Heaven."
Traherne was also concerned with the stability of the Restoration church in England. His confrontations with Roman Catholics and Nonconformists alike have this in common, a passion for his national church. Another great passion is his love of the natural world frequently displayed in a very Romantic
treatment of nature. While Traherne credits a divine source for its creation, his praise of nature is nothing less than that which one would expect to find in Thoreau
. Many consider him a writer of the sublime
, and in his writing, he tried to reclaim the lost appreciation for the natural world as well as paying tribute to what he knew of in nature that was more powerful than he was. In this sense, Traherne seems to have anticipated the Romantic movement over one-hundred and thirty years before it ever occurred. There is frequent discussion of man's almost symbiotic relationship with nature, as well as frequent use of literal setting (that is, an attempt to faithfully reproduce a sense experience from a given moment), a technique later used frequently by William Wordsworth
.
, Dorothy Sayers, Elizabeth Jennings
and C. S. Lewis
, who called Centuries of Meditations "almost the most beautiful book in English."
A stanza from Traherne is quoted in the movie Amazing Grace, by abolitionist Thomas Clarkson
. Clarkson quotes, "Strange treasures in this fair world appear..." and goes on to say it is from a poem by Thomas Traherne.
The British composer Gerald Finzi
set several Traherne texts to music (Dies natalis
, Opus 8, completed 1939).
The first stanza of Traherne's The Rapture is employed in the form of a riddle, by an assassin of sorts called a 'warrior-poet', in The Broken God
, a 1992 science fiction
novel with philosophical leanings written by David Zindell
.
The Incredible String Band
quote from Traherne extensively in the song Douglas Traherne Harding on their album Wee Tam and the Big Huge
, relating the philosophy of Traherne to that of Douglas Harding
.
The title and some of the thought of Richard Wilbur's poem A World Without Objects Is a Sensible Emptiness comes from Traherne's Centuries of Meditations, specifically Second Century, Meditation 65.
Phil Rickman
frequently refers to Traherne's poetry in his Merrily Watkin's series of novels.
In his award-winning book The Snow Leopard (Bantam: 1978, 216-7), Peter Matthiessen
cites Traherne's mystical, even Buddhist-like sense of nature found in Centuries of Meditations.
on October 10 and in the Episcopal Church (USA)
on September 27.
Master of Arts (Oxbridge)
In the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Dublin, Bachelors of Arts of these universities are admitted to the degree of Master of Arts or Master in Arts on application after six or seven years' seniority as members of the university .There is no examination or study required for the degree...
(1636 or 1637 – ca. 27 September 1674) was an English poet and religious writer. His style is often considered Metaphysical
Metaphysical poets
The metaphysical poets is a term coined by the poet and critic Samuel Johnson to describe a loose group of British lyric poets of the 17th century, who shared an interest in metaphysical concerns and a common way of investigating them, and whose work was characterized by inventiveness of metaphor...
.
Life
He was born in Hereford, son of a shoemaker, and educated at Hereford Cathedral SchoolHereford Cathedral School
Hereford Cathedral School is an independent, co-educational day school, with around 520 pupils aged between the ages of 11 and 18. It has four houses, named Langford , Stuart , Somerset and Cornwall Hereford Cathedral School is an independent, co-educational day school, with around 520 pupils aged...
and Brasenose College, Oxford
Brasenose College, Oxford
Brasenose College, originally Brazen Nose College , is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. As of 2006, it has an estimated financial endowment of £98m...
, in 1652, achieving an MA
Master of Arts (Oxbridge)
In the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Dublin, Bachelors of Arts of these universities are admitted to the degree of Master of Arts or Master in Arts on application after six or seven years' seniority as members of the university .There is no examination or study required for the degree...
in arts and divinity nine years later. After receiving his degree in 1656 he took holy orders
Holy Orders
The term Holy Orders is used by many Christian churches to refer to ordination or to those individuals ordained for a special role or ministry....
and worked for ten years as a parish priest in Credenhill
Credenhill
Credenhill is a village and civil parish in Herefordshire, England,Near Credenhill is the site of the former Royal Air Force station RAF Hereford, which is now the headquarters of 22 Special Air Service Regiment.-Notable residents:...
, near Hereford. In 1667 he became minister at Teddington
Teddington
Teddington is a suburban area in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames in south west London, on the north bank of the River Thames, between Hampton Wick and Twickenham. It stretches inland from the River Thames to Bushy Park...
and private chaplain to Sir Orlando Bridgeman, the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal
Lord Keeper of the Great Seal
The Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England, and later of Great Britain, was formerly an officer of the English Crown charged with physical custody of the Great Seal of England. This evolved into one of the Great Officers of State....
to Charles II
Charles II of England
Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...
. He died at Bridgeman's house at Teddington on or about 27 September 1674 and is buried in St Mary's Church under the reading desk.
Works
Traherne was an inconsequential literary figure during his life, whose works were unappreciated until long after his death. He led a humble, devout life, largely sheltered from the literary community. Only one of his works, Roman Forgeries (1673), was published in his lifetime. Christian Ethicks (1675) followed soon after his death, and later A Serious and Patheticall Contemplation of the Mercies of God (1699); but after that much of his finest work was lost, corrupted or misattributed to other writers.His poems have a curious history. They were left in manuscript
Manuscript
A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...
and presumably passed with the rest of his library into the hands of his brother Philip. They then apparently passed into the possession of the Skipps family of Ledbury, Herefordshire
Herefordshire
Herefordshire is a historic and ceremonial county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes it is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three counties that comprise the "Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire" NUTS 2 region. It also forms a unitary district known as the...
. When the property of this family was dispersed in 1888 the value of the manuscripts was unrecognised, for in 1896 or 1897 they were discovered by W. T. Brooke on a street bookstall. Alexander Grosart bought them, and proposed to include them in his edition of the works of Henry Vaughan
Henry Vaughan
Henry Vaughan 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 his wife Denise of 'Trenewydd', Newton, in Brecknockshire, Wales...
, to whom he was convinced the writings belonged. He left this task uncompleted, and Bertram Dobell, who eventually secured the manuscripts, discerned that the author had attended Oxford University. He was then able to establish the authorship of Thomas Traherne.
Posthumous success
As so little of Traherne's work had (apparently) survived his death, Traherne was previously labeled a “missing person” in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. In 2004, thanks to a number of additional discoveries, his status changed so much that he is no longer labeled a “missing person." He is now highly regarded, such that if there were a picture of him (no portrait of Traherne has been authenticated), he would be put next to other well-knowns such as Wordsworth.The discoveries responsible for his renewed vindication as a theologian, beside the poems, are the Centuries of Meditations, a collection of short paragraphs or meditations reflecting on Christian life and ministry, philosophy, happiness, desire and childhood. These are gathered in groups of a hundred, four complete centuries and an unfinished fifth. Some of these, evidently autobiographical in character, describe a childhood from which the "glory and the dream" was slow to depart. Of the power of nature to inform the mind with beauty, and the ecstatic harmony of a child with the natural world, the earlier poems, which contain his best work, are full. In their manner, as in their matter, they remind the reader of William Blake
William Blake
William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...
and William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads....
. The poems on childhood may well have been inspired by Vaughan's lines entitled The Retreat. He quotes George Herbert
George Herbert
George Herbert was a Welsh born English poet, orator and Anglican priest.Being born into an artistic and wealthy family, he received a good education that led to his holding prominent positions at Cambridge University and Parliament. As a student at Trinity College, Cambridge, Herbert excelled in...
's "Longing" in the newly discovered Lambeth Manuscript.
His poems were published in The Poetical Works (1903) and Poems of Felicity (1910). The Centuries appeared in 1908; The Select Meditations were only published in 1997. In 1996 and 1997, another of Traherne’s manuscripts were discovered in the Folger Library in Washington DC by Julia Smith and Laetitia Yeandle. A second was discovered in Lambeth Palace Library in London by Jeremy Maule. The Ceremonial Law, from the Folger library, is an unfinished epic poem of over 1,800 lines. The Lambeth Manuscript contains four, and a fragmentary fifth, mainly prose works known as: Inducements to Retiredness, A Sober View of Dr Twisse, Seeds of Eternity, The Kingdom of God and the fragment Love. For accounts of these discoveries see the Times Literary Supplement articles by Julia Smith and Laetitia Yeandle (7 November 1997) and Denise Inge and Cal Macfarlane (2 June 2000). These two finds are a primary contributing factor to why Traherne is now being considered as much as a theologian as a poet.
Style
Traherne was one of the Metaphysical poetsMetaphysical poets
The metaphysical poets is a term coined by the poet and critic Samuel Johnson to describe a loose group of British lyric poets of the 17th century, who shared an interest in metaphysical concerns and a common way of investigating them, and whose work was characterized by inventiveness of metaphor...
and probably the most celebratory of all of them. Although his links with Neo-Platonism and the Cambridge Platonists have been much noted, he also drew on the writings of Aristotle and on the Early Church Fathers for his concept of Man. His writing expresses an ardent, almost childlike love of God, similar to that of Gerard Manley Hopkins
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J. was an English poet, Roman Catholic convert, and Jesuit priest, whose posthumous 20th-century fame established him among the leading Victorian poets...
, and a firm belief in man's relation to and creation from divinity. He introduced a child’s viewpoint unknown or certainly unappreciated at the time, as Puritans were the dominant religious group of England during his lifetime. His poetry frequently explores the glory of creation and what he perceived as his intimate relationship with God. Little mention is made of sin and suffering in the works that dominated 20th century criticism, and some have seen his verse as bordering upon pantheism
Pantheism
Pantheism is the view that the Universe and God are identical. Pantheists thus do not believe in a personal, anthropomorphic or creator god. The word derives from the Greek meaning "all" and the Greek meaning "God". As such, Pantheism denotes the idea that "God" is best seen as a process of...
(or perhaps panentheism
Panentheism
Panentheism is a belief system which posits that God exists, interpenetrates every part of nature and timelessly extends beyond it...
). However, recent discoveries such as the Select Meditations, Inducements to Retiredness and A Sober View of Dr Twisse contain both discussions of church doctrines surrounding the question of sin, and moments of personal confession. These discussions are, however, far less dour and damning than one would expect to find in similar works of the period by Puritan
Puritan
The Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. Puritanism in this sense was founded by some Marian exiles from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England...
or Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
theologians. The following passage, from Centuries of Meditation, illustrates just how little focus Traherne placed on the subject of sin in that work:
And yet, in the newly discovered work A Sober View of Dr Twisse—a work devoted to the question of election and reprobation—he writes:
"He was excluded the Kingdom of Heaven, where nothing can enter that hates God, and whence nothing can be excluded that loves him. The loss of that Love is Hell: the Sight and Possession of that Love is Heaven. Thus did sin exclude him Heaven."
Traherne was also concerned with the stability of the Restoration church in England. His confrontations with Roman Catholics and Nonconformists alike have this in common, a passion for his national church. Another great passion is his love of the natural world frequently displayed in a very Romantic
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
treatment of nature. While Traherne credits a divine source for its creation, his praise of nature is nothing less than that which one would expect to find in Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, and leading transcendentalist...
. Many consider him a writer of the sublime
Sublime (literary)
The sublime is a form of expression in literature in which the author refers to things in nature or art that affect the mind with a sense of overwhelming grandeur or irresistible power. It is calculated to inspire awe, deep reverence, or lofty emotion, by reason of its beauty, vastness, or grandeur...
, and in his writing, he tried to reclaim the lost appreciation for the natural world as well as paying tribute to what he knew of in nature that was more powerful than he was. In this sense, Traherne seems to have anticipated the Romantic movement over one-hundred and thirty years before it ever occurred. There is frequent discussion of man's almost symbiotic relationship with nature, as well as frequent use of literal setting (that is, an attempt to faithfully reproduce a sense experience from a given moment), a technique later used frequently by William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads....
.
Influence
Traherne's work was personally influential on the thought of such notables as Thomas MertonThomas Merton
Thomas Merton, O.C.S.O. was a 20th century Anglo-American Catholic writer and mystic. A Trappist monk of the Abbey of Gethsemani, Kentucky, he was a poet, social activist, and student of comparative religion...
, Dorothy Sayers, Elizabeth Jennings
Elizabeth Jennings
Elizabeth Jennings was an English poet.-Life and career:Jennings was born in Boston, Lincolnshire. When she was six, her family moved to Oxford, where she remained for the rest of her life. Couzyn, Jeni Contemporary Women Poets. Bloodaxe, pp. 98-100. There she later attended St Anne's College...
and C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
Clive Staples Lewis , commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was a novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist from Belfast, Ireland...
, who called Centuries of Meditations "almost the most beautiful book in English."
A stanza from Traherne is quoted in the movie Amazing Grace, by abolitionist Thomas Clarkson
Thomas Clarkson
Thomas Clarkson , was an English abolitionist, and a leading campaigner against the slave trade in the British Empire. He helped found The Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade and helped achieve passage of the Slave Trade Act of 1807, which ended British trade in slaves...
. Clarkson quotes, "Strange treasures in this fair world appear..." and goes on to say it is from a poem by Thomas Traherne.
The British composer Gerald Finzi
Gerald Finzi
Gerald Raphael Finzi was a British composer. Finzi is best known as a song-writer, but also wrote in other genres...
set several Traherne texts to music (Dies natalis
Dies natalis
Dies natalis is a five-movement work by Gerald Finzi, setting texts by Thomas Traherne, for solo soprano or tenor and string orchestra.-History:Dies Natalis is a cantata for solo voice and string orchestra...
, Opus 8, completed 1939).
The first stanza of Traherne's The Rapture is employed in the form of a riddle, by an assassin of sorts called a 'warrior-poet', in The Broken God
The Broken God
The Broken God is a science fiction novel written by David Zindell and published in 1992. It is the first novel of the trilogy A Requiem for Homo Sapiens. The Broken God is essentially a coming of age tale of youngster named Danlo, but at a much grander scale on a faraway planet in the distant future...
, a 1992 science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novel with philosophical leanings written by David Zindell
David Zindell
David Zindell is an American author known for science fiction and fantasy epics. He was born in Toledo, Ohio, and resides today in Boulder, Colorado; he received a BA degree in mathematics and minored in anthropology at the University of Colorado at Boulder...
.
The Incredible String Band
Incredible String Band
The Incredible String Band were a psychedelic folk band formed in Scotland in 1966. The band built a considerable following, especially within British counterculture, before splitting up in 1974...
quote from Traherne extensively in the song Douglas Traherne Harding on their album Wee Tam and the Big Huge
Wee Tam and the Big Huge
-Personnel:*Robin Williamson - lead vocals ; guitar -Personnel:*Robin Williamson - lead vocals ("Job’s Tears", "The Yellow Snake", "The Half-Remarkable Question", "Ducks on a Pond", "Maya", "The Son of Noah’s Brother", "Lordly Nightshade", "The Mountain of God", "The Iron Stone" & "The Circle is...
, relating the philosophy of Traherne to that of Douglas Harding
Douglas Harding
Douglas Edison Harding was an English mystic, philosopher, author and spiritual teacher. He was born in Lowestoft in the county of Suffolk and raised in the Exclusive Plymouth Brethren, a Christian sect, which he apostatised at the age of 21.Though he never thought of himself as a guru Harding...
.
The title and some of the thought of Richard Wilbur's poem A World Without Objects Is a Sensible Emptiness comes from Traherne's Centuries of Meditations, specifically Second Century, Meditation 65.
Phil Rickman
Phil Rickman
Phil Rickman is a British author best known for writing supernatural and mystery novels, often based on conflicting forces of paganism and other religions....
frequently refers to Traherne's poetry in his Merrily Watkin's series of novels.
In his award-winning book The Snow Leopard (Bantam: 1978, 216-7), Peter Matthiessen
Peter Matthiessen
Peter Matthiessen is a two-time National Book Award-winning American novelist and non-fiction writer, as well as an environmental activist...
cites Traherne's mystical, even Buddhist-like sense of nature found in Centuries of Meditations.
Veneration
Traherne is honored in the Church of EnglandCalendar of saints (Church of England)
The Church of England commemorates many of the same saints as those in the Roman Catholic calendar of saints, mostly on the same days, but also commemorates various notable Christians who have not been canonised by Rome, with a particular though not exclusive emphasis on those of English origin...
on October 10 and in the Episcopal Church (USA)
Calendar of saints (Episcopal Church in the United States of America)
The veneration of saints in the Episcopal Church is a continuation of an ancient tradition from the early Church which honors important people of the Christian faith. The usage of the term "saint" is similar to Roman Catholic and Orthodox traditions. Those in the Anglo-Catholic tradition may...
on September 27.
Quotes
- The world is a mirror of Infinite Beauty, yet no man sees it. It is a Temple of Majesty, yet no man regards it. It is a region of Light and Peace, did not men disquiet it. It is the Paradise of God. It is more to man since he is fallen than it was before. It is the place of Angels and the Gate of Heaven. First Century, Meditation 31
- You are as prone to love, as the sun is to shine. Second Century, Meditation 65
- As nothing is more easy than to think, so nothing is more difficult than to think well. First Century, Meditation 8
- Souls are God's jewels. "First Century, Meditation 15"
- The corn was orient and immortal wheat, which never should be reaped, nor was ever sown. I though it had stood from everlasting to everlasting.... And so it was with much ado I was corrupted and made to learn the dirty devices of the world. "Third Century, Meditation 3"
- You never enjoy the world aright, till the Sea itself floweth in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens, and crowned with the stars: and perceive yourself to be the sole heir of the whole world, and more than so, because men are in it who are every one sole heirs as well as you. "First Century, Meditation 29"
Further reading
- Thomas Traherne: Poetry and Prose, Denise Inge (ed), London:SPCK, 2002
- Select Meditations, Julia Smith (ed), Carcanet, 1997.
- Landscapes of Glory: Daily Readings with Thomas Traherne, Donald Allchin (ed), Dartman Longman Todd, 1989.
- Waking Up in Heaven: A Contemporary Edition of Centuries of Meditations, David Buresh (ed), Hesed Press, 2002.
- Thomas Traherne: il poeta-teologo della meraviglia e della felicità, Eugenio Cattaneo (ed), Edizioni Villadiseriane (BG) Italy, 2007
- Happiness and Holiness, Thomas Traherne and His Writings, Denise Inge (ed) Canterbury Press, 2008.
- A Mind in Frame, The Theological Thought of Thomas Traherne, Thomas Richard Sluberski (ed), The Lincoln Library, 2008.
- Wanting Like a God: Desire and Freedom in the Work of Thomas Traherne, Denise Inge, London: SCM, (2009)
External links
- Thomas Traherne Centuries
- Selected Poetry of Thomas Traherne at Representative Poetry Online
- The Strange Case of Thomas Traherne by Forrest Gander