Architect, born in Cheshire, NW England, UK. In 1881 he emigrated to Boston, where he led the Boston Gothicists, designing primarily churches and schools. His late American Gothic Revival influenced Ralph Adams Cram, among others.
For the Radnorshire landowner, see Henry Vaughan (1721-1754). Vaughan was born to Thomas Vaughan and Denise Morgan in Newton-upon-Usk in Breconshire Wales. Vaughan was also the twin brother of the hermetic philosopher and alchemist Thomas Vaughan. However, around 1640 Vaughan's family agreed that law would be a career of great promise for Henry. It appears as though Vaughan complied with no resistance (Calhoun,39).Vaughan was a Royalist sympathizer and is thought to have possibly served during the Civil War. This would have also suggested upon his return, Vaughan began to practice medicine.
Vaughan took his literary inspiration from his native environment. This name is a reflection of the deep love Vaughan felt towards the Welsh mountains and valley where Vaughan spent most of his early life and professional life.
SECULAR WORKS OF HENRY VAUGHAN
By 1647 Henry Vaughan, with his wife and children, had chosen life in the country. This is the setting in which Vaughan wrote Olor Iscanus. It is believed that there was great crisis in Vaughan life, which attributes to the time period between the authorship and publication of Olor Iscanus. During these years William Vaughan died and he was evicted from his living in Llansantffraed. Vaughan also condemns this collection as having “long ago condemned these poems to obscurity.”
Olor Iscanus is filled with odd words and similes that beg for attention despite its dark and morbid cognitive appeal. This work is fouded from crisis felt in Vaughan's homeland, Breconshire. During the Civil War, there was never a battle fought on the grounds of Breconshire, however the effects of the war were deeply felt by Vaughan and his surrounding community. This was an abvious source of misfortune for Vaughan, for he too had lost his home in this time (Calhoun, 40). There is a distinct difference between the atmosphere Vaughan attempts to convey in this work in comparison with his most famous work Silex Scintellians. A fervent topic of Vaughan throughout these poems is the civil war and reveals Vaughan’s somewhat paradoxical thinking that, in the end, gives no clear conclusion to the question of his participation in the Civil War. Vaughan states his complete satisfaction of being clean on “innocent blood” but also provides what seem to be eyewitness accounts of battles fought and his own “soldiery.” Although Vaughan is found to be a Royalist, these poems express contempt for all current authority and a lack of zeal for the royal cause (Bartleby.com).
Conversion
The period shortly preceding the publication of Henry Vaughan’s Silex Scintillians marked an extremely important period of his life. Certain indications in the first volume produced and explicit statements made in the preface of the second volume of Silex Scintillians that Vaughan indicates a prolonged sickness that inflicted much pain on the poet. Vaughan interprets this experience to be an encounter with death and a wake-up call to his “misspent youth.” Vaughan believes he is spared to make amends and start a new course not only in his life but in the literature he would produce. Vaughan himself describes his previous work as foul and a contribution to “corrupt literature.” Perhaps the most notable mark of Vaughan’s conversion is how much it is accredited to George Herbert. Vaughan claims that he is the least of Herbert’s many “pious converts” (Bartleby.com). It is during this period of Vaughan's life that he adopts the saying "moriendo, revixi;" by dying, I gain new life (Calhoun, 132).
George Herbert
It was not until Vaughan’s conversion that he encountered much success with his writings. With his conversion came the writing of Silex Scintillians, which brought acclaim to Vaughan. Outside of Silex Scintillians, Vaughan has had some success, however it is important that the majority of all of the success has been found after his conversion (Bartleby.com).
Archbishop Trench stated, “As a divine Vaughan may be inferior [to Herbert], but as a poet he is certainly superior” (Grosart, 2). Vaughn’s use of monosyllables, long-drawn alliterations and his ability to “compel the reader” places Vaughan as “more than the equal of George Herbert.” Yet others say that the two are not even comparable, due to the fact that Herbert is in fact the “Master.” While these critics admit that Henry Vaughan use of words can be superior to Herbert’s, his poetry is, in fact, worse.
While the superiority or inferiority of Vaughan and Herbert is a question with no distinct answer, one cannot deny that Vaughan would have never written the way he without the direction of Herbert as his predecessor. One will never be able to deny the explicit spiritual influence of Herbert on Henry Vaughan (Calhoun, 2). The prose of Vaughan exemplifies this as well. For instance, The Temple, by Herbert, is often seen as the inspiration and blueprints through which Vaughan modeled to create his work. There are differences between the two, in that Vaughan extends to unchartered territory that Herbert seemed not to dare to venture into. Herbert's influence is evident both in the shape and spirituality of Vaughan's poetry. For example, the opening to Vaughan's poem 'Unprofitableness':
How rich, O Lord! ev'n as the flowers in springAnother work of Vaughan’s that clearly parallels with George Herbert is Mount of Olives. Even at his best, Vaughan seems to be a repetition of many of Herbert’s thoughts and themes. Critics have pointed out that Vaughan is enslaved to Herbert’s works, using the same “little tricks” such as abrupt introductions and whimsical titles as the framework for his own work. Critics also agree that Vaughan “failed to learn” from Herbert. Vaughan carried an inability to know his limits and focused more on the intensity of the poem, meanwhile losing the attention of his audience (Grosart, 5-6).
The Conversion of the Jews and the Silex Scintillians
One particular theme to which Vaughan stressed was the conversion of the Jews. This is perhaps the most relevant similarity between Herbert and Vaughan as well as their works. Particularly, Vaughan addressed the Jews specifically as a result of his anticipation of their involvement in a conflict between England and Wales (Matar,1-4) . Vaughan encouraged the Jews and stressed their influence on the current events and their potential in a conversion to Christianity.
However, Vaughan, along with his homeland Wales were not the only side of the conflict reaching out to the Jewish community. There is a clear shift in the way that Vaughan viewed the Jews between the first Silex Scintillians and its sequel.
The result of the contrast found in these two works, along with the ability to see the motivation comes the need to see the two parts of Silex Scintillians as independent works. Vaughan seems to encompass the duties of an old-testemant prophet, with his audience being the Jews. Vaughan presents Jews as an innocent good people:
Haste, hast my dear, The soldiers here Cast in their lots again, That seamless coat, The Jews touched not, These dare divide, and stain.This poem presents a contrast from a popular negative paradigm most writers of similar vein of Vaughan were expected to present. Vaughan was aware of the consequences of this attitude and attempted to rectify in order to restore hope for their conversion and consequential support. Vaughan chose to contrast the Jews from contemptible groups and praised “the former rather than vilify both” (Matar, 5).
Vaughan incorporates death as an occuring theme throughout this first part of Siliex Scinitillians in order to stress the sensantions of eternal life.
As previously stated, in Vaughan’s sequel, Silex Scintillians II, Vaughn’s positive view of the Jews was not maintained. Every motive for which Vaughan had previously written the Silex Scintillians had not been satisfied, nor did it seem feasible that they would be.
This new attitude of Vaughan’s reveals his inconsistency to his predecessor George Herbert. While Herbert saw the Jews as historical Biblical figures, Vaughan felt they encompassed a political religious threat that must be confronted (Matar, 7). In Vaughan's "The Jews", the Jews are protrayed as a lost forsaken child, much like Isaac's older brother-Ishmael (Calhoun,202).
The True Henry Vaughan
However, the view of Vaughan as a mere mimic of George Herbert’s is not a universally consistent opinion. Grosart denies, “that Henry Vaughan was an imitator of George Herbert" (Grosart, 3). This is when Vaughan is said to have contributed the greatest to the world of literature. Through his mind and temperance, Vaughan reveals his true self, breaking any chains of influence from any poet, namely Herbert. Vaughan shows style that is very relaxed, and is often noted for his superior descriptions in his poetry. Even in some instances when Vaughan borrows from Herbert, he makes it his own. Vaughan can draw from Herbert's language to create his own observations that are independant from Herbert himself. It is as if Vaughan takes propriortership of some of Herbert's work, yet makes it completely unique to himself (Calhoun,66). Vaughan's mind thinks in terms of a physical and spiritual and the obscure relation between the two (Calhoun,132). Vaughan had a tendency to allow his thoughts to move to very original unfamiliar and remote places, and this reflected in his poetry. Much of Vaughan's poetry has a particularly modern sound.
Henry Vaughan takes another step away from George Herbert in the manner to which he presents his poetry to the reader. This contrasts with the attitude of Vaughan as he promotes the experience of the book itself to be the guide to reading. In fact, Vaughan gives no encouagement to any method to reading his works and offers no structure to comply with (Calhoun, 140)
Vaughan also began to elaborate on personal loss in two of well-known poems "The World", and "They Are All Gone in the World of Light." Another poem, the Retreat combines the theme of loss with the corruption of childhood, which is yet another consistent theme of Vaughan.
Vaughan’s Legacy
As is the case with many great writers and poets, Henry Vaughan did not avail much acclaim during his lifetime. Vaughan lived well before modern times, yet had an appreciation and seemed to contain some type of sympathy with the conditions and effects of alienation that attribute the term "modern." Before his death on April 23, 1695, at the age of 73, Vaughan had encountered very small fame.
WORKS OF HENRY VAUGHAN
- Poems with the Tenth Satire of Juvenal Englished - Olor Iscanus - Silex Scintillians I - Silex Scintillians H - Mount of Olives - Flores Solitudinis - Hermetical Physics - The Chemist’s Key - Humane Industry - Thalia Rediviva
External links and References
Essay on the Life and Writings of Henry Vaughan, Silurist," in The Works in Verse and Prose Complete of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Vol.
GEORGE HERBERT, HENRY VAUGHAN, AND THE CONVERSION OF THE JEWS , Matar, Nabil I., Studies in English Literature (Rice), 00393657, Winter90, Vol. 30, Issue 1
Henry Vaughan: The Achivement of the Silex Scintillians, Calhoun, Thomas O.
The Works of George Herbert, F.E. to Henry Vaughan from the edition by The Works of Henry Vaughan, L.C.
Wikisource has original text related to this article: Author:Henry Vaughan Luminarium: Henry Vaughan - Life, works, essays, Henry Vaughan- The Cambridge History of English and American Literature.
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