1st Edition

Boundless Innocence in Thomas Traherne's Poetic Theology 'Were all Men Wise and Innocent...'

By Elizabeth S. Dodd Copyright 2015
256 Pages
by Routledge

254 Pages
by Routledge

254 Pages
by Routledge

The seventeenth-century poet and divine Thomas Traherne finds innocence in every stage of existence. He finds it in the chaos at the origins of creation as well as in the blessed order of Eden. He finds it in the activities of grace and the hope of glory, but also in the trials of misery and even in the abyss of the Fall. Boundless Innocence in Thomas Traherne’s Poetic Theology traces innocence... Read more
Introduction; Chapter 1 Defining Innocence; Chapter 2 ‘Perfect innocency by creation’; Chapter 3 ‘No Man is Innocent’; Chapter 4 The Trial of Innocence; Chapter 5 ‘Innocency of Life’; Chapter 6 ‘A Light So Endless unto me’; Chapter 7 ‘Were all men Wise And Innocent …’;

Biography

Elizabeth S. Dodd is Director of Studies for Ministry Programmes at Sarum College, Salisbury, and teaches in the areas of doctrine, spirituality, church history, literature and theology and theological aesthetics. She has been an academic tutor for ministry training through STETS and Sarum College since 2012, after completing her doctorate on Thomas Traherne at Cambridge University, supervised by Professor David Ford. She teaches on Thomas Traherne for the general public and has published on his work, including a forthcoming essay collection on Thomas Traherne and Seventeenth Century Thought with Cassandra Gorman, for D.S. Brewer. Her main research interests are in literature and theology, particularly seventeenth-century metaphysical poetry and the theme of innocence in Christian literature. She also has an interest in theological aesthetics, in particular the uses of genre theory and the public role of the lyric voice in theology.

’In this impressive study of Traherne's engagement with innocence, Dodd re-claims and re-assesses one of Traherne's most important theological, aesthetic, and philosophical ideas. Simply stated, this book is necessary.’ Jacob Blevins, McNeese State University, USA