Dissertations and Theses @ UNI
Availability
Open Access Thesis
Keywords
Merton, Thomas, --1915-1968--Geography of Lograire;
Abstract
The paradox in Thomas Merton's life, that of being both poet and priest, has often been studied. Merton himself was torn by this paradox, the need to keep his vow of silence and the need to express himself through language. It is this paradox, the paradox of language and silence and how Merton resolves it in antipoetry, that is examined in this study. Antipoetry provides an answer to many paradoxes Merton finds in his life. Merton, in his autobiography The Seven Storey Mountain, first believed that one must reject the world to embrace God, but later in his life recants the autobiography in his wish to eliminate the man he once was, making his autobiography an anti-autobiography. With his introduction to Joyce and Camus, Merton begins to work toward a resolution to the paradox. Joyce's games with language give Merton an awareness of the possibilities of language and Camus's atheism forces Merton to explore the idea of finding God in the absence of God. It is Pablo Neruda and Nicanor Parra who introduce Merton to antipoetry, the poetry which presents the common language and experience of people as it is without using the trappings of traditional poetry. Although Merton does reject conventional poetry, he does follow a long tradition established in American poetry beginning with Whitman and moving to Eliot, Crane, Pound, and Williams as one who assumes the role of epic poet of every person's soul. It is this tradition The Geography of Lograire follows. The Geography of Lograire follows the voices of many people in numerous cultures in order to break the barrier between poet and reader, and between people in differing cultures. In establishing this unity among people, the poet loses his individual voice, people lose their individual voices, and a unity within this namelessness, this silence, is established. It is through this silence, this sense of namelessness that comes through the awareness of others in antipoetry, that Merton resolves the paradox of being both a priest and a poet as well as the paradox of language and silence, for it is within this silence that Merton embraces his world and finds his God.
Year of Submission
1991
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
Department of English Language and Literature
First Advisor
Theodore Hovet
Second Advisor
George Day
Third Advisor
Edward Amend
Date Original
1991
Object Description
1 PDF file (90 leaves)
Copyright
©1991 Barbara J. Hemann
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Hemann, Barbara J., "Resolving the Paradox: Thomas Merton, Antipoetry, and the Language of Silence in the Geography of Lograire" (1991). Dissertations and Theses @ UNI. 2921.
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/etd/2921
Comments
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