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Jacques Maritain on the Mystic-Poet

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Anthony Richard Haynes Open the ORCID record for Anthony Richard Haynes [Opens in a new window]
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Abstract

I examine Jacques Maritain's assertion that his godfather, the Catholic writer Léon Bloy, was both an artist and a mystic, capable of reaching the heights of mystical contemplation of God. First examining this assertion in light of Maritain's mystical theology and philosophy of creativity, I show that a conventional reading of their operative principles renders mystical experience and artistic experience essentially different in their respective modes and objects of knowledge. Drawing on Maritain's personal reflections on Bloy and recent developments in Maritain scholarship, however, I then make the case that by virtue of relatively unexplored elements in Maritain's testimony and theoretical principles, the Christian artist can also have the experience of the Christian mystic when they direct their work to the mysteries of the Christian faith. I call this convergence ‘Infused-Poetic Contemplation’.

Keywords

Jacques MaritainLéon Bloymysticismartpoetry
Type
Original Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 102 , Issue 1098 , March 2021 , pp. 239 - 256
Copyright
Copyright © 2019 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

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References

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