C.F.E.S.
_April_ 1913.
Contents
I. Introduction
Definition of Mysticism. The Early Mystical Writers. Plato.
Plotinus. Chronological Sketch of Mystical Thought in England.
II. Love and Beauty Mystics
Shelley, Rossetti, Browning, Coventry Patmore, and Keats.
III. Nature Mystics
Henry Vaughan, Wordsworth, Richard Jefferies.
IV. Philosophical Mystics
(i) _Poets._--Donne, Traherne, Emily Bronte, Tennyson.
(ii) _Prose Writers._--William Law, Burke, Coleridge, Carlyle.
V. Devotional and Religious Mystics
The Early English Writers: Richard Rolle and Julian; Crashawe,
Herbert, and Christopher Harvey; Blake and Francis Thompson.
Bibliography
Index
Mysticism in English Literature
Chapter I
Introduction
Mysticism is a term so irresponsibly applied in English that it has
become the first duty of those who use it to explain what they mean by
it. The _Concise Oxford Dictionary_ (1911), after defining a mystic as
"one who believes in spiritual apprehension of truths beyond the
understanding," adds, "whence _mysticism_ (n.) (often contempt)."
Whatever may be the precise force of the remark in brackets, it is
unquestionably true that mysticism is often used in a semi-contemptuous
way to denote vaguely any kind of occultism or spiritualism, or any
specially curious or fantastic views about God and the universe.
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