An original and profound exploration of contemplation from philosopher, theologian, and poet Kevin Hart. In
Lands of Likeness, Kevin Hart develops a new hermeneutics of contemplation through a meditation on Christian thought and secular philosophy. Drawing on Kant, Schopenhauer, Coleridge, and Husserl, Hart first charts the emergence of contemplation in and beyond the Romantic era. Next, Hart shows this hermeneutic at work in poetry by Gerard Manley Hopkins, Marianne Moore, Wallace Stevens, and others. Delivered in its original form as the prestigious Gifford Lectures,
Lands of Likenessis a revelatory meditation on contemplation for the modern world.
Kevin Hartis the Edwin B. Kyle Professor of Christian Theology at the University of Virginia. He is the author of numerous books of poetry, theology, and criticism, including
Morning Knowledge, Poetry and Revelation: For a Phenomenology of Religious Poetryand
The Dark Gaze: Maurice Blanchot and the Sacred, which was also published by the University of Chicago Press.Note on Citations and Conventions
Introduction
1: From Templum to Contemplation
2: The Sabbath of the Idea
3: Hermeneutic of Contemplation
4: Contemplation with Kestrel
5: Fascination
6: Consideration
7: From Supreme Being to Supreme Fiction
8: Contemplation with Noisy Birds
9: Contemplating "the True Mystery"
10: "On Course but Destinationless"
11: Mystère and Mystique
12: "To Contemplate the Radical Soul"
Afterword: Poem as Templum
Acknowledgments
Glossary
Notes
Index
"[An] arresting invitation to stop and see.Lands of Likeness. . . could not be more timely. For what it commends is nothing other than a way of being in the world that is neither grasping nor hurried, that is minutely attentive to the particularity of things rather than forever looking pals