Emblems of a Season of Fury
1961
First Published
4.35
Average Rating
149
Number of Pages
Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk, shows in this volume a deep and painful awareness of the problems of the world beyond his monastery walls. Merton said that the twentieth century man who has not meditated on Auschwitz does not yet know the meaning of meditation of the meaning of his own times. These poems are often points for such meditation. "Chants for a Site With Furnaces" combines ironic understatement with parody of the stereotypes commonly used to justify such massive crimes against humanity. Along with these "emblems" of nuclear-age pathology are elegies for Hemingway and Thurber, religious and metaphysical poems of contemplative life and a long prose "Letter" on the Cold War. In addition, there is a section of translations from the works of Vallejo (Peru), Carrera Andrade (Ecuador), Cuadra, Cardenal, and Cortes (Nicaragua), and a selection of mystical poems by Raissa Maritain, wife of the Thomist philosopher.
Avg Rating
4.35
Number of Ratings
17
5 STARS
53%
4 STARS
29%
3 STARS
18%
2 STARS
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Author
Thomas Merton
Author · 90 books
Thomas Merton (1915-1968) was one of the most influential Catholic authors of the 20th century. A Trappist monk of the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani, in the American state of Kentucky, Merton was an acclaimed Catholic spiritual writer, poet, author and social activist. Merton wrote over 60 books, scores of essays and reviews, and is the ongoing subject of many biographies. Merton was also a proponent of inter-religious dialogue, engaging in spiritual dialogues with the Dalai Lama XIV, Thich Nhat Hanh, D. T. Suzuki and poet Robert Lax. His life and career were suddenly cut short at age 53, when he was electrocuted stepping out of his bath.
