Steps to the Temple, The Delights of the Muses and Carmen Deo Nostro. By Ric. Crashaw, sometimes Fellow of Pembroke Hall, and late fellow of St Peters Colledge in Cambridge. The 2nd Edition. London: In the Savoy, Printed by T.N. for Henry Herringman at the Blew Anchor in the Lower Walk of the New Exchange. 1670 BOUND WITH: Poemata et Epigrammata, quae scripsit Latina & Græca, dum Aulae Pemb. Alumnus fuit, et Collegii Petrensis Socius. Editio Secunda

Crashaw, Richard (1612-1649)

Edité par Ex Officina Joan. Hayes, celeberrimae academiae typographi, Cambridge, 1670

A propos de cet article

Bound in contemporary blind-ruled calf (deftly re-backed, corners bumped, boards with light stains). A fine copy internally, complete with the engraved frontispiece. Last leaf of second work lightly browned at edges. With two 17th c. ownership inscriptions: "Chaerandri Ailsburiensis 12 Maii 1690" and "Schol. Gram. Ailsburiensis"(the Aylesbury grammar school, founded 1598.). This collection of Crashaw's poetry comprises the third edition (not the second, as the title states) of his "Steps to the Temple" (first 1646), the third edition of "The Delights of the Muses" (first edition 1648) and the second edition of the posthumous "Carmen Deo Nostro.Sacred Poems" (first edition 1652). "The Delights of the Muses" and the "Carmen Deo nostro" each has a divisional title page on leaves F8r and K5r respectively. The book is bound with the separately-published (at Cambridge by John Hayes) of Crashaw's collection of Latin poems and epigrams, which was first printed in 1634. Along with Donne, Herbert and Marvell, Crashaw was one of the most important of the Metaphysical poets. "Compared with one another, Crashaw represents more of Donne's ecstasy, and Herbert more of his reason" (George Williamson). The son of a Puritan clergyman who eventually converted to Catholicism, Crashaw is best known for the intensity of his religious poetry. The "Steps" contains Crashaw's best-known poems: "The Weeper", "Wishes: To his (supposed) Mistresse", and his "Hymn to Saint Teresa", which provided the inspiration to Coleridge's "Christabel". Also included is Crashaw's poem in praise of George Herbert, "On Mr. George Herberts Booke entituled The Temple of Sacred Poems, sent to a Gentlewoman." "It is certain that Crashaw's English poetry was mostly written during his years in Cambridge. He wrote both on secular as well as sacred themes, but it is for his devotional poetry that he is rightly best remembered. His poetry was published in Steps to the Temple: Sacred Poems, with other Delights of the Muses by the royalist publisher Humphrey Moseley in 1646, with an expanded edition in 1648. As the title indicates Crashaw is presented as heir to George Herbert, another poet with Cambridge roots. But the styles of the two poets are different. Crashaw's devotional celebrations focus on believers as part of a large congregation, adding their voices to a chorus that stretches across liturgical history. "A number of his poems originate in well-known medieval hymns, which he adapts rather than translates precisely. Crashaw has a preoccupation with female saints (the Virgin, Mary Magdalen, St Teresa), and this has generally supported a view of his Roman Catholicism. His thorough devotion to the Virgin, including accepting a version of her Assumption, would certainly have been frowned on by many within the English church, while St Teresa is one of the most celebrated of Counter-Reformation saints. "Crashaw's poetic voice is a conspicuous one in English and possesses an exuberant, often ecstatic quality that builds over many lines, celebrating an emotional excitement that greatly surpasses the tenor of the scriptural or medieval texts on which the poems are often founded. Crashaw's version of the medieval 'Sancta Maria dolorum' readily exemplifies this. Imploring Mary, witnessing her son's crucifixion, to teach the poet an appropriate fervour to share in the event, he asks that the poet, the Virgin, and by implication the reader may 'study him so, till we mix / Wounds; and become one crucifix', and concludes with a desire for an emotional merging that sees him become the child suckling on his saviour. "Much of Crashaw's English writing, both sacred and secular, builds on the epigram, the genre in which he gained his initial reputation. In his longer poems Crashaw frequently writes what can virtually seem a series of extended epigrams. For instance, each of the thirty-one stanzas of 'The Weeper', Crashaw's poem on Mary Magdalen, is effectively a separate epigram commemorating.

N° de réf. du vendeur 5037

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: Steps to the Temple, The Delights of the Muses and Carmen Deo Nostro. By Ric. Crashaw, sometimes Fellow of Pembroke Hall, and late fellow of St Peters Colledge in Cambridge. The 2nd Edition. London: In the Savoy, Printed by T.N. for Henry Herringman at the Blew Anchor in the Lower Walk of the New Exchange. 1670 BOUND WITH: Poemata et Epigrammata, quae scripsit Latina & Græca, dum Aulae Pemb. Alumnus fuit, et Collegii Petrensis Socius. Editio Secunda
• Éditeur: Ex Officina Joan. Hayes, celeberrimae academiae typographi, Cambridge
• Date de parution: 1670
• Reliure: Hardcover
• État de l'article: Fine