Mind of the Maker, The - Softcover

Dorothy L. Sayers

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0264673557 ISBN 13: 9780264673554

Publisher: Mowbray, 1994

Synopsis

From the first pages of Genesis, it is clear that God and man share one vital trait: the ability to create great works out of nothing. More than any other group, artists feel impelled to create, and this urge brings them closer to God. By contemplating the creative drive of humanity, we can better understand the works of God, and by reading deeply into the tenets of Christianity, we can better understand the creative spirit of man. Dorothy L. Sayers explores the concept of the Holy Trinity within the context of invention: the creative idea, the creative energy, and the creative power. In this searching, wide-ranging treatise, one of the greatest minds of the twentieth century shows us what it means to be an artist—and what it takes to make humankind. Sayers was a renowned English crime writer, poet, playwright, essayist, translator, Christian humanist, and a student of classical and modern languages. She is best known for her mysteries, a series of novels and short stories set between the First and Second World Wars that feature English aristocrat and amateur sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey, that remain popular to this day. However, Sayers herself considered her translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy to be her best work. She is also known for her plays, literary criticism and essays.

About this title

Review:

Best known for her Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries, Dorothy Sayers was also a playwright, essayist, and a translator of Dante. C.S. Lewis said that he liked her "for the extraordinary zest and edge of her conversation--as I like a high wind." The reader gets a fair taste of that wind in this book, her study of the human (and divine) creative process. Beginning with some stingingly humorous words for the education process (which has produced, she says, "a generation of mental slatterns") she then explores the Trinitarian nature of creativity. Here she identifies the Christian concept of the Holy Trinity--God, Son, Holy Spirit--with three elements of creation. First, the Idea: "passionless, timeless, beholding the whole work complete at once, the end in the beginning"; then the Creative Energy: "begotten of that idea, working in time from the beginning to end," manifesting the Idea in matter; and finally the Creative Power: "the meaning of the work and its response in the lively soul"--in essence, what she calls "the indwelling Spirit."

In a plain, matter-of-fact style that readers will recognize from her mysteries, she reflects on the question of free will and miracle, evil, and, ultimately, "the worth of the work." It is especially here, I think, in this final chapter that the book remains both timeless and profoundly timely. The artist stands for the true worker, she writes, who, while requiring payment for his work, as an artist "retains so much of the image of God that he is in love with his creation for its own sake." So too, ultimately, should it be for all human work: "That the eyes of all workers should behold the integrity of the work is the sole means to make that work good in itself and so good for mankind. This is only another way of saying that the work must be measured by the standard of eternity." --Doug Thorpe

From the Back Cover:

This classic, with a new introduction by Madeleine L'Engle, is by turns an entrancing meditation on language; a piercing commentary on the nature of art and why so much of what we read, hear, and see falls short; and a brilliant examination of the fundamental tenets of Christianity. The Mind of the Maker will be relished by those already in love with Dorothy L. Sayers and those who have not yet met her.

About this edition

• Publisher: Mowbray
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0264673557
• ISBN 13: 9780264673554
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 186