Heretic Blood - Softcover

Higgins, Michael W.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0773761535 ISBN 13: 9780773761537

Publisher: Stoddart Pub, 2000

Synopsis

In 1948, Thomas Merton, a monk from a Trappist monastery in Kentucky published the story of his life in a book called "The Seven Storey Mountain". The book became an instant best-seller and propelled him onto the world stage. Merton was first and foremost a monk, and he became one of the great monastic figures of the century. But he was also a poet, essayist, translator, cartoonist, photographer, social and political activist, and mystic. His personal and religious struggles have made him a symbol of our search for meaning in the modern world. On the 30th anniversary of Merton's death, scholar and professor Michael Higgins explores the spiritual geography of Thomas Merton.

Produced at the state of the art recording studios of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Approximate Duration 3 Hours

About this title

Review:

"Simply put," the author of this provocative study says, "Thomas Merton is the William Blake of our time." This is the "heretic blood" of the title: seeing Blake as an "arch-rebel," Higgins suggests that Merton--whose master's thesis at Columbia University was on Blake and who clearly never lost his love of Blake--takes the Romantic poet as something of a role model. "He was engaged in the same kind of spiritual and intellectual tasks," Higgins writes: "the critiquing of a dehumanizing culture; the re-visioning of human destiny; the liberating of our senses from the shackles of constrictive reason; the commingling of the imaginative arts." Academic dean and vice president of St. Jerome's University at the University of Waterloo, Higgins brings forth many references to Blake in Merton's work to support his argument. However, one need not be entirely convinced by the author's Blakean map to Merton's life to benefit from his close reading of Merton's prose, and even more from the attention he pays to his poetry, which was certainly at the center of Merton's own spiritual and artistic life--the place, in fact, where these two most deeply met. Doug Thorpe

About the Author:

Michael W. Higgins is the author of four books on Thomas Merton, a celebrated radio documentary series, and numerous scholarly articles and popular columns. In addition, he has written and coauthored biographies of Emmett Cardinal Carter, Henri J. M. Nouwen, and Jean Vanier as well as works on the Jesuits, contemporary Roman Catholic life, the politics of saint-making, and religion and the media. He is currently Vice-President of Mission and Catholic Identity and Professor of Religious Studies at Sacred Heart University, Fairfield, CT.

About this edition

• Publisher: Stoddart Pub
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0773761535
• ISBN 13: 9780773761537
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256