This essay in autobiography opens in Eyrecourt, east Galway, and describes an early schooling at Rockwell and the experiences of a Jesuit novice at Emo Court, Co. Laois, and Rathfarnham. John O'Meara read classical studies at University College, Dublin, and after a spell of teaching at Clongowes Wood left in 1942 on a travelling studentship to Oxford, where he gained a doctorate three years later. In 1947 he married Odile de Montfort, whom he met in Dublin. The Singing-Masters is written w...

City of God is an enduringly significant work in the history of Christian thought, by one of its central figuresWritten as an eloquent defence of the faith at a time when the Roman Empire was on the brink of collapse, this great theological and philosophical work by St Augustine, bishop of Hippo, examines the ancient pagan religions of Rome, the arguments of the Greek philosophers and the revelations of the Bible. Pointing the way forward to a citizenship that transcends w...

Gerald of Wales was among the most dynamic and fascinating churchmen of the twelfth century. A member of one of the leading Norman families involved in the invasion of Ireland, he first visited there in 1183 and later returned in the entourage of Henry II. The resulting Topographia Hiberniae is an extraordinary account of his travels. Here he describes landscapes, fish, birds and animals; recounts the history of Ireland's rulers; and tells fantastical stories of magic wells and deadly whir...

This essay in autobiography opens in Eyrecourt, east Galway, and describes an early schooling at Rockwell and the experiences of a Jesuit novice at Emo Court, Co. Laois, and Rathfarnham. John O'Meara read classical studies at University College, Dublin, and after a spell of teaching at Clongowes Wood left in 1942 on a travelling studentship to Oxford, where he gained a doctorate three years later. In 1947 he married Odile de Montfort, whom he met in Dublin. The Singing-Masters is written w...

How can we know the great Goddess again? How worthy are we of that mythical experience? How are we related to that experience in our deepest depravity? And why has the mythical experience grown so opaque to us in our post-Romantic, modern world?These are the main issues arising out of Western literary tradition that John OMeara explores in this book.In the work of Robert Graves, Shakespeare, and Keats, OMeara sees the deepest expression at once of our most far-reaching hope...

Recent interest in who Shakespeare's Muse may have been prompts one to come forth to dispel the drastically simplistic notions that have been brought forward. In this essay John O'Meara suggests where our concern with Shakespeare should actually lie or what form of Muse we can suppose it was that commanded his development the way it did.Shakespeare was fated for a certain experience from which he could not extricate himself, even if he had wished to. Highlighted is his struggle wit...

The period covered in this book ranges from the early part of the 20th century right through to its end-roughly from the death of Chekhov to that of Ted Hughes. The question is raised whether the vision of the modern world that opened up to the authors of this period does not still apply in our own time.The book's main theme is the finality of modern nothingness. What remains that is superhumanly possible, despite all appearances that nothing more and nothing new is left to man to ...

As the third part of his trilogy on Shakespeare, Prospero's Powers extends the study of the late plays O'Meara offered in Othello's Sacrifice, to consider more closely how Shakespeare fulfills his personal artistic development in The Tempest.The play is seen as expressing in its structure the whole of Shakespeare's tragic development up to that time. Great powers of self-knowledge and of inner knowledge of the cosmos are shown to have emerged from this de...

This book presents an in-depth view of the extraordinary revisionist language Shakespeare gives to his most royal of all kings, from the time Richard falls dramatically out of favor with God.Readers will find this book most useful in seeking to disentangle the plays notoriously elaborate verbal presentation, but what the author brings out in connection with Richards approach to language should move performers themselves to seek to present in future a more creatively dynamic Richard...

This essay offers a radical view of the post-Renaissance, Western literary scene inasmuch as Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophy bears a relation to it, principally through his Mystery Plays. A number of major authors are highlighted as having an intrinsic connection with the Anthroposophical revelation-notably T.S. Eliot, and especially S.T. Coleridge. The prospect of a new cultural poetic for the future is outlined in connection especially with these two major figures of English critical-poet...

Looking ahead to the 250th anniversary of Wordsworths birth, this small book challenges fresh questions about where Wordsworth stood in his poetic production in the great years of creative ferment between 1798 and 1806. Numerous poems are covered from this period, but especially does this book re-think our traditional conception of the relationship between The Prelude and Intimations. Wordsworth is separated from the visionary life he once knew by the interdictive effects of his obsession ...

While over the past four hundred years numerous opinions have been voiced as to Shakespeare's identity, these eleven essays widen the scope of the investigation by regarding Shakespeare, his world, and his works in their interaction with one another. Instead of restricting the search for bits and pieces of evidence from his works that seem to match what he may have experienced, these essays focus on the contemporary milieu—political developments, social and theater history, and cultural an...