AUDIOBOOK
About
You know Thomas Merton as one of the most extraordinary voices of the twentieth century: a profound mystic, a gifted writer, and an exceptional teacher. Now, hear Merton, a celebrated poet himself, share his deepest insights into poetry.
Merton studied English at Cambridge and Columbia, where he wrote his master’s thesis on William Blake. An English professor at Columbia and St. Bonaventure University, Merton relinquished his life as a budding academic to become a Trappist monk. His passion for literature never faded, and he continued to write and teach about literature while at the Abbey of Gethsemani.
Merton believed that studying literature was fundamental to understanding life, and in this captivating set released for the first time ever, Merton explores how poetry reveals such topics as love, suffering, spiritual experience, and nature. Under his guidance, you will look at such poets as William Blake, Gerard Manley Hopkins, W. H. Auden, Charles Peguy, and Emily Dickinson.
Merton saw poetry not only as one of the most profound modes of human expression but also as a very real way in which to encounter Jesus. He understood that “art and poetry attune the soul to God because they induce a kind of contact with the Creator and Ruler of the Universe” (No Man Is an Island, 37). Weaving his Catholic spirituality together with this passion for poetry, he shows how the two realms complement each other.
Sit at the feet of this masterful poet today.
*Photograph of Thomas Merton by Sibylle Akers. Used with Permission of the Merton Legacy Trust and the Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University. These recordings are from the archives of the Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University, in Louisville, Kentucky.
Merton studied English at Cambridge and Columbia, where he wrote his master’s thesis on William Blake. An English professor at Columbia and St. Bonaventure University, Merton relinquished his life as a budding academic to become a Trappist monk. His passion for literature never faded, and he continued to write and teach about literature while at the Abbey of Gethsemani.
Merton believed that studying literature was fundamental to understanding life, and in this captivating set released for the first time ever, Merton explores how poetry reveals such topics as love, suffering, spiritual experience, and nature. Under his guidance, you will look at such poets as William Blake, Gerard Manley Hopkins, W. H. Auden, Charles Peguy, and Emily Dickinson.
Merton saw poetry not only as one of the most profound modes of human expression but also as a very real way in which to encounter Jesus. He understood that “art and poetry attune the soul to God because they induce a kind of contact with the Creator and Ruler of the Universe” (No Man Is an Island, 37). Weaving his Catholic spirituality together with this passion for poetry, he shows how the two realms complement each other.
Sit at the feet of this masterful poet today.
*Photograph of Thomas Merton by Sibylle Akers. Used with Permission of the Merton Legacy Trust and the Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University. These recordings are from the archives of the Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University, in Louisville, Kentucky.
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Reviews
"We are privileged to be ,flies on the wall, of his classroom as Merton leads the novices into the deeper insights of the Benedictine tradition. Highly recommended. "
Richard Bell
"The Merton talks (any and all) are special because in addition to the sound quality being acceptable and the content being as rich as is found reading his books, one can get a sense of the kind of person Merton was that is hard to get just from reading: warm, down-to-earth, funny."
Stephen Cook, Mansfield, TX, US
"I've read many published works of Merton and, even though his work is now decades old, more than ever, they speak to our world today. To hear him speaking in his own voice adds a dimension of humanness to him that writings alone cannot convey. Also, his sense of humor, something we seem to never catch a glimpse of in print, clearly comes to us."
Therese McAteer, Winterville, NC, USA