Childhood and Self in Silex Scintillans

Childhood and Self in Silex Scintillans by Boyd M. Berry Jonathan Post's recent analysis shows that Henry Vaughan had grave difficulty achieving the sort of apparent joy and tranquility which Thomas Traherne professed.' Both Vaughan and Traherne are commonly linked in critical surveys since both sought to retreat from or rise above political, social, and personal problems through contemplation of childhood. In the case of Vaughan, critical comment has focused on his poetic development and upon the relationship between his verse and the violent political events which the author endured. Looking backward to infancy was one way Vaughan renounced (or sought to transcend) the political furor of his age; it provided him a regressive, strife-free, passive, "contemplative" refuge — perhaps a sort of "moratorium" — from the events of this world. However, I wish to suggest that not all of Vaughan's problems were political; Vaughan located some of the problems he faced within himself.often in a sentimental or self-destructive way, and it seems we should at least partially credit his own analysis. More important, just as he ultimately discarded the writing of poetry, so he discarded the theme of simple, innocent infancy for a more active and combative vision. He differs from Traherne in developing; he differs from Traherne in arriving finally at something quite different from simple joy and tranquility. The theme of childhood presents a microcosm of this difference, for it constituted a phase in Vaughan's poetic development and ultimately it was a passing phase. While central to his development, the theme of childhood is not central to his mature vision. Because I wish to argue that Vaughan's verbal acts as author are linked in important ways to his other biographical deeds, let me begin with the view that Vaughan, who lived to a ripe old age, produced a considerable body of work at the moment when his political leader was being crushed and his 73 Boyd M. Berry enemies installed in power "for life." That was E.L. Manila's argument: "the Civil War and its political consequences, hitherto regarded only as an influence on Vaughan's attitude before 1650, represent the principal force in his spiritual development during the period 1647-1654."2 Marilla was questioning a prior view, that Vaughan had undergone some sort of violent, disjunctive religious "conversion"; as Simmonds puts it, Manila's aim was "to see Vaughan's poetic, intellectual, and religious development as essentially organic, continuous, and natural rather than radically disjunctive."3 Perhaps in the process Marilla over-emphasized the political impact. Yet he pointed out a significant curve in Vaughan's development. Born in 1 621 , Vaughan was a young man of 28 in 1 649 when the "Royalist catastrophe," the execution of Charles I, operated to "intensify Vaughan's religious feelings, which culminated in complete renunciation of secular interests and found austere expression in the Preface of 1 654 — written, let us note, exactly ten days after Parliament made Cromwell 'Protector for life' " (Marilla, p. 20). With the "happy event for Royalists," the Restoration of Charles II, Vaughan seems to have stopped writing almost entirely. In Manila's view the writing of religious verse was precipitated by the downward curve of the Royalist cause while the later, upward curve seems to have rendered the writing of poetry unnecessary. Vaughan's near silence after 1660 is particularly striking because during the eleven years between 1646 and 1657 he was unusually busy and published eleven volumes. His first work appeared just after the conclusion of the first civil war, when it had become clear that Parliament would not be conclusively beaten by the King. His last real poetic achievement (S/7ex Scintillans, 1655) appeared just at the consolidation of Cromwell's power. Two translations, of chemical and of medical texts, appeared in 1656 and 1657, just as Cromwell's health was beginning to fail. A year later, Cromwell died, and it was not until long after the Restoration, in 1 674, that Vaughan's only other volume appeared, Thalia Rediviva. Although its title announced that the lyrical muse had come to life again, this seems in a host of ways not to have been true...