Description
Book SynopsisAn original and profound exploration of contemplation from philosopher, theologian, and poet Kevin Hart. In Lands of Likeness, Kevin Hart develops a new hermeneutics of contemplation through a meditation on Christian thought and secular philosophy. Drawing on Kant, Schopenhauer, Coleridge, and Husserl, Hart first charts the emergence of contemplation in and beyond the Romantic era. Next, Hart shows this hermeneutic at work in poetry by Gerard Manley Hopkins, Marianne Moore, Wallace Stevens, and others. Delivered in its original form as the prestigious Gifford Lectures, Lands of Likeness is a revelatory meditation on contemplation for the modern world.
Trade Review“
Lands of Likeness is one of the deepest accounts of poetry’s cognitive dimensions ever written. What Hart does in the book is explore models of poetic reflection that conform to the models of neither discursive philosophical argumentation nor full-fledged religious contemplation, yet inhabit a meditative domain that is both conceptual and spiritual. I know of no other book that explores this terrain as thoroughly as this one does." -- John Koethe, University of Wisconsin–Madison
“In this learned and comprehensive book on the poetic legacy of contemplation, Hart guides us from the early church fathers to the Romantics, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and many major twentieth-century poets who looked on nature in light of its likeness to spirit. A distinguished poet himself, Hart has much to say to readers and writers of poetry. Indeed, this book will interest anyone who has felt the power of leaving some things unsaid as well as the elation of those ‘hovering thoughts’ that are the book’s focus.” -- Susan Stewart, Princeton University
Table of ContentsNote on Citations and Conventions
Introduction
1: From Templum to Contemplation
2: The Sabbath of the Idea
3: Hermeneutic of Contemplation
4: Contemplation with Kestrel
5: Fascination
6: Consideration
7: From Supreme Being to Supreme Fiction
8: Contemplation with Noisy Birds
9: Contemplating "the True Mystery"
10: "On Course but Destinationless"
11: Mystère and Mystique
12: "To Contemplate the Radical Soul"
Afterword: Poem as Templum
Acknowledgments
Glossary
Notes
Index
