Owen Barfield Romanticism Come Of Age

'Romanticism Comes of Age' centers on the question; What is the creative imagination and in what way is it true? Owen Barfield insightfully explores the role of imagination in Romantic philosophy and literature, particularly in the work of Coleridge and of Goethe. Barfield also traces the evolving nature of the creative imagination from primordial times to the present, drawing on a wide array of examples including the language of ancient Greece, Dante's 'Commedia', and Shakespeare's 'Hamlet'. The book brilliantly demonstrates that the Romantic Movement's core elements and aspirations have "come of age" in anthroposophy, the spiritual science inaugurated by Rudolf Steiner.

‘Barfield towers above us all… the wisest and best of my unofficial teachers.’ – C.S. Lewis ‘We are well supplied with interesting writers, but Owen Barfield is not content to be merely interesting. His ambition is to set us free from the prison we have made for ourselves by our ways of knowing, our limited and false habits of thought, our “common sense”.’ – Saul Bellow Owen Barfield – philosopher, author, poet and critic – was a founding member of the Inklings, the private Oxford society that included the leading literary figures C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien and Charles Williams. C.S. Lewis, who was greatly affected by Barfield during their long friendship, wrote of their many heated debates: ‘I think he changed me a good deal more than I him.’ Simon Blaxland-de Lange’s biography – the first on Owen Barfield to be published – was written with the active cooperation of Barfield himself who, before his death in 1997, gave numerous interviews to the author and shared a large quantity of his papers and manuscripts. The fruit of this collaboration is a book that penetrates deeply into the life and thought of one of the most important figures of the twentieth century. It studies the influences on Barfield by the Romantic poet Coleridge and the philosopher Rudolf Steiner (founder of anthroposophy), and elaborates on Barfield’s profound personal connection with C.S. Lewis. The book also features a biographical sketch in his own words (based on personally conducted interviews), and describes Barfield’s strong relationship with North America and his dual profession as a lawyer and writer. This updated edition features vital new material including Barfield’s own ‘Psychography’ from 1948 and an illustrative plate section.

"The playful artistry of the Waldorf Alphabet Book speaks to the heart of childhood. These lively illustrations, so filled with color, movement, eloquent gesture, and invention conjure up long-forgotten memories of books from a time when pictures were still alive and spoke with power. Each page is a magical door, opening to the bright realm where stories are enacted, a realm of wonders accessible to children, artists, and ll those in whom the light of imagination shines. "The most important thing as you peruse the delightful pages of the Waldorf Alphabet Book with your child is the engaging conversation that flows between you as you search among the pictures for words." (from the afterword) In this delightful, bestselling alphabet and game book for young children, each consonant and vowel comes to life in vivid pictures that show each letter's unique qualities in the world. The vibrant and playful illustrations help children learn the alphabet in the most natural and living way. This expanded paperback edition includes a complete essay by master Waldorf teacher William Ward, "Learning to Read and Write in Waldorf Schools": This is the alphabet book for parents and teachers who want to encourage the most natural development in children. It is ideal for both at home and in the classroom. It also makes an ideal gift for your favorite young child or parents!

Owen Barfield (1898-1997), philosopher, historian, and literary theoretician, is well known for his friendship with C. S. Lewis. What is virtually unknown is that he was also admired and promoted by T.S. Eliot, who in the 1920s became his publisher at Faber and Faber. There can scarcely be two writers at greater variance than Lewis and Eliot; that Barfield was admired by both showed that he was an independent thinker, far more subtle and complex than has so far been recognized. Diener's book about Barfield's early work is the first systematic study to trace the roots and the development of his thought. It places Barfield in the tradition of British and European cultural and social critics, including Coleridge, Arnold, Nietzsche, and Rudolf Steiner. In the light of this tradition, Barfield's work emerges as a unique and constructive contribution to twentieth-century thought.

‘He [Harwood] is the sole Horatio known to me in this age of Hamlets…’ – C. S. Lewis, from Surprised by Joy Cecil Harwood (1898-1975) – lecturer, Waldorf teacher, writer, editor and anthroposophist – pioneered and developed the first Rudolf Steiner (Waldorf) school in the United Kingdom (the New School in London, now Michael Hall School in Sussex). He also led the Anthroposophical Society in Great Britain for some 37 years. In 1922, at the age of 24, Harwood attended a festival of English folk song and dance in Cornwall, alongside his life-long friend Owen Barfield. It was here – and not in the academic citadel of Oxford University, where they were both part of the literary circle known as the Inklings – that Harwood and Barfield were to encounter the work of Rudolf Steiner through meeting Daphne Olivier. Sun King’s Counsellor provides an intricate picture of the human connections, cultural movements and spiritual background that contributed to what came together in Cornwall in 1922, leading to Harwood’s life’s work. Featuring a colour plate section and full index, it documents Harwood’s early years and antecedents, marriages to Daphne Olivier and Margaret Lundgren, friendships with Barfield and C.S. Lewis, his life-changing meeting with anthroposophy and Rudolf Steiner, teaching and educational work, and Harwood’s critical role in healing divisions within the Anthroposophical Society. Based on extensive research of primary sources, Blaxland-de Lange’s biography reveals the multi-faceted, flexible and sacrificial nature of this unique personality. Alfred Cecil Harwood – he preferred ‘Cecil’ instead of Alfred, with its meaning of ‘wise counsellor’ – began his career with the hope of becoming a writer, and had neither the intention nor ambition to become a teacher or the head of a national organization. Yet he became both an exemplary teacher and leader, as well as a celebrated author, editor, translator and lecturer.

In this book Michael Di Fuccia examines the theological import of Owen Barfield's poetic philosophy. He argues that philosophies of immanence fail to account for creativity, as is evident in the false shuttling between modernity's active construal and postmodernity's passive construal of subjectivity. In both extremes subjectivity actually dissolves, divesting one of any creative integrity. Di Fuccia shows how in Barfield's scheme the creative subject appears instead to inhabit a middle or medial realm, which upholds one's creative integrity. It is in this way that Barfield's poetic philosophy gestures toward a theological vision of poiēsis proper, wherein creativity is envisaged as neither purely passive nor purely active, but middle. Creativity, thus, is not immanent but mediated, a participation in being's primordial poiēsis.