Author Type

Graduate Student

Date of Award

1970

Document Type

Thesis

Publication Status

Version of Record

Submission Date

October 2026

Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]

Pearce, Howard W.

Abstract

Most modern critics of the poetry of Thomas Traherne view the Dobell Folio, indeed the poetry as a whole, as far inferior in quality and importance to Traherne's other writings. In their attempts to explain his philosophy, the critics have generally focussed on the history of ideas rather than on the body of Traherne's work. Although recent critics have become more responsive to the Dobell poems, these works are usually discussed in a most cursory and economic manner. It is, hence, the purpose of this paper to examine the Dobell Folio in detail with regard to form and content, artistic capability, and control, as well as to poetic intent. I attempt to demonstrate that the poet is a capable, resourceful craftsman who carefully manipulates visual and spiritual perspective to instruct the reader. The technically demanding process of perspective shift is evidenced in the poems by two "voices," two distinctive personae whose points of reference are entirely opposed. The development of the sequential pattern of Innocence - -Fall -- Redemption suggests that one persona acting in the poems participates in a phenomenal reality, an objective reality of temporal and spatial experience. Concomitant with this phenomenal reality is a noumenal reality which is purely subjective and nonsensual . This noumenal perspective of unity is the point of reference for the second voice in the poems. Since the reader (and the unredeemed persona) can never have a sensual experience of a nonsensuous perception, he must be led by the redeemed poet, sub specie aeternitatis, through a journey of discovery until he attains the mystical state of comprehension of the reality external to him and independent of him . At some uncertain point the phenomenal and noumenal realities intersect; at that point of actualization, the world of objective reality is transcended, time and space cease to be real, and the persona becomes unified with that reality which previously was external and separate. The poet intends to demonstrate by the parable of historical autobiography the way to apocalyptic vision of spiritual reality, a subjective reality which is readily available but to which the individual, caught up in temporality, is blind. As I demonstrate in this paper there are two distinct realities expressed by two separate voices involved in the sequence. The two realities are responsible for the seemingly inartistic tense shifts, pronoun changes, and other "inconsistencies." These "inconsistencies" I suggest, are not theresult of faulty workmanship, but are there by design. The "flaws" are not instances of "incoherent diffuseness," but are, rather, vital indicators necessary for comprehension of the artistic play involved in the sequence . The Dobell sequence is found to be highly ordered, rich in symbolic and imagistic interrelationships, and carefully structured to reveal a vision of glorious beatitude. Through reflection on the perspective of each stage of the "divine comedy" of life, the author, indeed, Everyman, may learn the lesson of plentitude and reign in communion with Spirit.

Extent

128 p.

Comments

Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters|Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 1970.|FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection|Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters

Identifier

FADT13422

Format

pdf

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