Ray Livingston's 'The Traditional Theory of Literature' (Preface and Prologue)

The only Perennialist text devoted exclusively to the study of literature as a non-liturgical sacred art, in large part an exposition of the ideas of Ananda Kentish Coomarawswamy

We’ve done some fun post-series here at Hogwarts Professor — I think immediately of last July’s month-long everyday Kanreki celebration of J. K. Rowling’s 60th Birthday and this year’s group charting of every Part of Hallmarked Man — and we have a few in the planning stage. This post is the launch of one; I hope by the end of the week I can start another.

The series this post begins is in response to a question I don’t think anyone is asking but I feel obliged to answer anyway. It is something of an explanation of what makes Hogwarts Professor different and, frankly, unique among the crowd of literature-appreciation and fan sites online. Besides the fun Nick and I have on the Rowling Studies podcasts.

What this site offers that no other person or site does is consistently ground-breaking exegesis of the best in contemporary and classic fiction. I broke Rowling’s code, if you will, with respect to her use of literary alchemy, Christian symbolism, psychomachia (soul allegory), chiastic structure, and mythic templates. We’ve done similar break through work here for understanding the artistry and meaning of authors as diverse as C. S. Lewis, Suzanne Collins, Stephenie Meyer, Veronica Roth, even Robert Louis Stevenson and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley.

The question no one is asking this seeming Gilderoy is, “How does he do that?” How did a Greek and Latin major who didn’t take a single English class in college become ‘The Dean of Harry Potter Scholars’ and a premier Serious Striker?

The reason somebody — everybody? — should be asking that question is of course so they can learn to do it themselves. I’ve been sharing my perspective and methodology implicitly for years (see links to a bunch of those posts at the very bottom of this post); I’m overdue for explaining it explicitly.

The answer to the question, in one word, is Perennialism, sometimes called ‘Traditionalism.’ More specifically, it is the Perennialist understanding of literature — the best poems, plays, and books — as a non-liturgical sacred art. That art uses specific tools to foster the transformation of the human person from carnally-minded to spiritually-minded or just to remind us in a world of forgetting what human life is about. It has been my familiarity with this school of thought and my learning about how to recognize work done with the tools they describe that enabled the No English Class guy to see what the academics and super-re-readers missed (and still don’t get, with notable exceptions).

The problem with my sharing what I have gleaned from my library of Perennialist introductions, overviews, and anthologies is that there isn’t a single book to which I could refer interested readers. As noted, I’ve put up several posts, draft chapters from my PhD thesis in disguise, in which the Perennialist distinction between ‘religious art’ and ‘sacred art’ is made and in which I’ve listed resources to read to learn more about the theocentric orientation of the traditionalists, but nothing on ‘The Traditional Theory of Literature’ per se.

But there is a book on that subject, one with that exact title in fact. And it’s in the public domain so I can share it with you here: Roy Livingston’s Traditional Theory of Literature (University of Minnesota Press, 1962).

It’s simultaneous glory and its failing is that it was published in 1962, that is, well before Martin Lings, James Cutsinger, and Philip Sherrard had written their books about the Greats from a Perennialist perspective. The glory of that is that it turns entirely on the writing about myths and story by Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy (AKC), a man born in Ceylon, raised and educated in England, and the person largely responsible for bringing the wisdom and art of India to a Western audience. Which is to pass over what he taught his global reading audience about the Sophia Perennis as such, to include a traditional theory of literature.

What follows below is (1) the Table of Contents for Livingston’s Traditional Theory of Literature, (2) the preface to the work, (3) the first chapter or Prologue, and (4) the Glossary of Perennialist terms that are used throughout the book ([5] links to my Perennialist posts are at the very bottom). I’ll be posting the next six chapters of Livingston’s book here, one chapter a week for six weeks.

It’s not light reading. It’s the world turned upside-down, frankly, from modern and postmodern literary theory. But AKC’s ideas explain why the tools in Rowling’s Shed — and Shakespeare’s, Marvell’s, Lewis,’ Tolkien’s, Collins,’ and Meyer’s — are as effective as they are, something Critical Theory doesn’t recognize or explain.

I understand this series of posts is totally for wonks. This first posting is going out to everybody as an introduction. The next six will only go out to the paid subscribers, a group who as a rule love this kind of thing. The second series I’m working on will be much more accessible, I promise, if just as challenging.

Enjoy!

The Traditional Theory of Literature, Roy Livingston, University of Minnesota Press, 1962

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

I Prologue

II Man, Society, and Art

III The Creative Process

IV The Work of Art

V The Function of Works of Art

VI Judgment and Criticism

VII Conclusion

Glossary

PREFACE

Authority is the source of knowledge, but our own reason remains the norm by which all authority must be judged. John Scotus Erigena

This book is an introduction to the Traditional doctrine of the nature and function of literature. Although over-simple and imprecise, it is not intended to be a popularization. At best it may serve as a primer whose very imperfections will increase the reader’s desire to consult the authoritative works it cites in abundance. If these purposes are not served there may be little excuse for meddling with Ananda Coomaraswamy’s writings, which serve as the primary source of the ideas here set forth.

What may appear as intransigence in this work stems from the conviction that one must decide to let his communication be yea, yea; nay, nay. With due regard for the especial claims of Christian orthodoxy, I have said yea to a venerable Tradition that has persisted for millennia. To all that is contrary to this Tradition, I voice my nay, to the degree that it is ignorant of Traditional claims or that it perverts Traditional forms for malign purposes. Whatever appears to be heterodox, syncretic, or eclectic is put down unwittingly and not wilfully.

Let it be noted at the outset that Coomaraswamy cannot be lumped with those swamis East and West, or like types, who peddle a bogus “spirituality” that is vague, delusory, and deceitful. I believe further that Coomaraswamy had no designs on us in the West except to return us to the sources of our own wisdom. In essence his message is this: “Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well” (Prov. 5:15). And if we go here to an outlander, Coomaraswamy, for aid, it is because it has been stated, “As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country” (Prov. 25:25). The good news brought from far countries corroborates our own Good News, which seems in our time to be much staled by custom and muddied by ignorance.

To the many who have helped me I am grateful. The offices of several benefactors I wish especially to acknowledge. Mr. DeWitt Wallace, who gave generously to Macalester College so that it could grant research monies to ready a dissertation for publication, Professor David White, who turned me to Coomaraswamy, Professor Donald Swanson, who checked (at one stage) the Greek and Sanskrit words; Professor Herbert Slusser, who read the manuscript with the charity that inspires; Miss Sara Hunter, who typed the final draft with rare diligence, and Miss Marci Strout, who edited the work with good cheer, tact, and devotion.

I wish also to express my gratitude to Mr. and Mrs. Ira Rubel whose manifold kindnesses have done much to make this work possible. At the last I must mention the one who is first, my wife Claire, without whom I would not have conceived or written this book.

Ray Livingston

Macalester College, St. Paul, Minnesota

For enquire, I pray thee, of the former age

And prepare thyself to the search of their fathers

For we are but of yesterday, and know nothing,

Because our days upon earth are a shadow.

Shall they not teach then, and tell thee,

And utter words out of their heart?

Job 8:8-10

I PROLOGUE

If the deep learning and strong will of one man can avail anything to lift the curse of Babel today, Dr. Coomaraswamy deserves the gratitude of mankind. Graham Carey

“Criticism in our day,” it has been said with some truth, “is a sort of tower of Babel.”[1] Even more truly one could state that not only literary criticism but also the whole “house of intellect” is a tower of Babel. Assuming this, one must ask the important question. How can we escape the confusion of voices? The answer is to be found in the very metaphor of Babel with its manifold implications. Cleary one should try to quit the tower and learn anew “the one language and one speech” that prevailed before the curse was laid upon men.[2] For the practicable means of liberation, we can turn in our extremity to the account in Genesis, which in the manner of primordial myths is timely as well as timeless in import.[3] Preposterous though such a proposal may seem, it is worth studying, if only by those oppressed by the murmuring but still hopeful of the “pure language” anciently promised.

Persons qualified to interpret Scriptures parabolically[4] will observe that the “one language” of Genesis is, in a certain sense, a clear expression of the one Divine Word which is the source of form and intelligibility in every order of manifestation. This “language” is essentially the Logos, the creative wisdom of God, common to all men, most of whom live without awareness of it.[5] Forgetfulness of this Word causes confusion of tongues, recollection restores understanding and communication. So far as this wisdom has not been lost to men, the “one language,” in many linguistic forms, is still understood by some and used in discourse.[6]

Because direct intellectual intuition of the Word is beyond most persons, who are unwilling or unable to rectify their natures, we must search for another version of the Truth that we can grasp. In another age this might be found in the inspired Scriptures. Now, however, we receive or deduce all too little from this source, largely because we are not of the spirit of those who set them down originally. The best then that most of us can do is to consult lesser writers whose works are so far as possible congruent with Holy Writ and accommodated to our condition.

There are some in our time who in their search for authoritative doctrine on a variety of subjects can repair to the works of St. Thomas Aquinas, which are impressive in their cogency, clarity, and strict coherence to superior principles. There are others, though, who find that their minds however much informed by the Angelic Doctor are not completely amenable to his particular idiom. These few, still hoping to hear a clear voice above and beyond the noise of Babel, must look elsewhere.

They can well turn to the great modern expositors of the perennial Tradition, especially to Rene Guenon, Frithjof Schuon, and Ananda Coomaraswamy. These scholars, who read the great myths and scriptures of mankind with reverence and penetration, have discerned a common metaphysical language in all the diverse cultural forms. Whatever their shortcomings, they have been conscious of their obligation to ground their many works – so far as they are able – on the “one language” that is the vehicle of truth in every place and age.

Although all have written about many phases of Traditional thought, it is Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy who has studied more than the others the whole subject of art in the perennial Tradition. It is his works that one can best study for a hint at least of the doctrine of art that existed (and still exists) before the confusions of Babel. And those who first wish to abandon the quarters in the tower that are reserved for the practitioners of literary criticism can profitably examine Coomaraswamy for suggestions of escape. This we propose to do here.

Coomaraswamy, pre-eminently a Doctor of the Tradition, has written many works dealing with metaphysics, mythology, religion, folklore, philology, philosophy, politics, sociology, and the natural sciences.[7]He has, moreover, written so copiously and well on the art of the world that his works probably comprise the most comprehensive and unimpeachably orthodox statement of the doctrine of art according to the universal Tradition. And although he was concerned for years largely with the visual arts, he does set forth a theory of art that in its more universal form is a calculus that can be interpreted in terms of any art, be it agricultural, political, musical, or literary.[8] This doctrine of the arts is one that prevailed for millennia in a more or less pure form until recently.

By coupling Coomaraswamy’s many specific statements on literature with his doctrine of art, one can reconstruct, mutatis mutandis, a theory of literature supported by the perennial Tradition, ordered by first principles, and quite free from both the limitations of individualism and the fatal concessions to modernity often found in writers otherwise sound. The materials are at hand, gathered by unremitting industry and discrimination and interpreted by inspired intellection. One could organize these materials into a treatise that would discover a theory of literature radically different from, and more satisfying intellectually than, many now current. This precisely is what we will do here, as others have made studies of the aesthetic theories of St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas whom Coomaraswamy resembles intellectually.

Although this study will be based upon Coomaraswamy’s works, the doctrine of art and literature that will emerge will not be an individual one, for it was Coomaraswamy’s intention to set forth only those ideas that reflect in various forms the principial truths of the Primordial Tradition. Even for those persons who have little sympathy for this mode of thought, this doctrine may have some interest because it will represent a polar position, for them possibly a terminus a quo happily abandoned for more sensible beliefs.

For others it could reveal an extraordinary theory echoed in many ways, though often coupled with incompatible elements, in diverse works in the history of Western thought. Its doctrines will be consistent with a whole view of God, man, and the universe, long enduring and still not dead. They will resemble those of Plato, St. Augustine, Meister Eckhart, and William Blake, whose writings still possess fructifying energy.[9] If we turn to the works of one man, it is not only because he has gathered a treasure of Traditional wisdom such as few could ever find by themselves, but also because we find in Coomaraswamy a grand type of the philosopher and critic whose thought is enlightening and whose life and work are exemplary.

Despite our intention to consider Coomaraswamy as exemplar for scholar, critic, and teacher, it would be contrary to the Tradition by which he lived to write much about his life and personality.[10] Enough has probably been written,[11] though nothing has been said quite so appropriate to him as the words of the Chorus on Oedipus dead at Colonnus: “He lived his life” More than this one need not say except possibly to add with Antigone. “He did as he wished.” What Coomaraswamy intended to do is what is of interest here. And because he was like some others in large measure what he thought, this study dealing with his thought may well treat of his essential nature more than would a biography.

What he thought has, moreover, seemed extraordinary to many persons. Among those who have eulogized Coomaraswamy, Eric Gill could say, “I believe that no other living writer has written the truth in matters of art and life and religion and piety with such wisdom and understanding”[12] On the other hand, scholars who have followed him in writing much less well on the subjects he treated with immense authority and learning have again and again failed even to mention him in their bibliographies. It may be helpful, therefore, to say a few words about the nature of his work and his attitude toward it.

Generally deprecating concern with the original and the personal as heretical in a radical sense (from …. “to choose,” i.e., for one-self), Coomaraswamy was in spirit like the rishis or seers of old whose names are unknown or mythical at best. He believed that what he wrote – or much of it, at least, in the great productive period of his last three decades – was not his own in an individual sense. Feeling no proprietorship, he often quoted the saying of Walt Whitman, “These are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, they are not original to me.”

Shortly before his death, at his last public appearance, Coomaraswamy spoke in a rarely personal vein to those honoring him.

I should like to emphasize that I have never built up a philosophy of my own or wished to establish a new school of thought. Perhaps the greatest thing I have learned is never to think for myself; I fully agree with Andre Gide, that “Toutes choses sont dites deja!” [“All things are already said!”] and what I have sought is to understand what has been said, while taking no account of the “inferior philosophers.” Holding with Heraclitus that the Word is common to all, and that wisdom is to know the Will whereby all things are steered, I am convinced with [Alfred] Jeremias that the human cultures in their apparent diversity are but dialects of one and the same language of the spirit, that there is a “common universe of discourse” transcending the difference in tongues.[13]

For the task of understanding what has been said, Coomaraswamy in his generation was uniquely equipped by the fact of his birth, education, and natural endowments. Born of a Tamil father and an English mother, educated in England from an early age, he was fortunate in returning to his native land as a geologist to head its first mineralogical survey. In the following years in Ceylon and India he became more and more aware – as many Indians were not – of the greatness of the heritage of India, long scorned by Westerners. There began the process of winning back his birthright as an Oriental; in this he responded as few men ever have to the Faustian challenge:

What from your fathers’ heritage is lent,

Earn it anew, to really possess it.

Born as he was of two cultures and educated in the liberal arts as well as in the sciences, each with its own claims, he was presented with a challenge that evoked from him a response equal to his powers. To become who he was, to become a man and not a creature caught (like many Indians) between two worlds, he had to transcend the limiting claims of both worlds by encompassing the truth of each in an organic synthesis. This he did and was thus enabled to spend his life earning back his eternal birthright with its claims and privileges beyond the national and cultural.

Coomaraswamy was one of those fortunate men graced with a genuine vocation. In his life the truth of the Bhagavad Gita’s dictum on vocation was borne out: “Man reaches perfection (or success) by his loving devotion to his own work.” Having the nature of a great scholar, he found the work that suited him. From the earliest writings to the last, one senses the initiatic progress typical of hereditary callings; with sureness and inevitability he moved step by step from the study of the art of medieval Ceylon to the mastery of the most profound metaphysical speculations. And so complete and sure was his dedication to the work at hand that, despite the astonishing breadth of his knowledge, he seems to have been little given to accumulating learning for the sake of show or diversion. His powers were so drawn forth by his vocation that his writings display an authority and vigor, not personal, that is unmistakable even to those who cannot agree with much in the Traditional thought.

Coomaraswamy’s natural endowments are difficult to analyze, so much does he seem an integral man in his writings. Most important for his work, besides his great intelligence, was a catholicity of vision and a magnanimity toward many modes of thought; conversely, he lacked the prepossessions that limit, the parochialism and fearfulness that engender the bigotry and the odium theologicum tainting much religious thought, especially in the West. He knew with St. Ambrose that “the truth by whomever it is spoken is of the Holly Spirit.” Despite his generosity, he was never a syncretist given to easy eclecticism. An examination of his mature works will show a transcendental orthodoxy and rigor of thought shared by thinkers like Plotinus, Dante, and Eckhart.

As even a brief glance at his works will reveal, Coomaraswamy was one of the most keen and indefatigable trackers of the spoor that leads to God, one of whose names is Truth, for he saw the vestigia pedis in folklore, mythology, religion, poetry, theology, philosophy, metaphysics, and art from all over the world. All the tracks, however effaced and worn by time, he knew led to the same lair, as he wrote in a notable essay, “All paths lead to the same summit.” [14] He agreed with Edgar Dacque that myth represents the deepest knowledge that man has[15] and with Mircea Eliade, who in his study of folk tales says that “la memoire collective conserve quelquefois certains details precis d’une ‘theorie’ devenue depuis longtemps inintelligible … des symboles archaiques d’essence purement metaphysique….”[16] [“The collective memory sometimes retains certain precise details of a 'theory' that has long since become unintelligible... archaic symbols of purely metaphysical essence...”]

In this he was poles apart from a common type of modern scholar, Sir J G Frazer, who spent a lifetime collecting examples of folk beliefs only to remark that he had been “led on, step by step, into surveying, as from some specular height, some Pisgah of the mind, a great part of the human race” and to say, “I was beguiled, as by some subtle enchanter, into inditing what I cannot but regard as a dark, a tragic chronicle of human error and folly, of fruitless endeavor, wasted time and blighted hopes.”[17]

Thanks to the generosity of his mind and the security of his knowledge Coomaraswamy was able to discover not only the eternal truths of myths and folk thought but also those set forth by the great writers of the past. In another of his rare personal statements he said, “no day passes in which I do not read the Scriptures and the works of the great philosophers of all ages so far as they are accessible to me in modern languages and in Latin, Greek and Sanskrit. I am wholly convinced that there is one truth that shines through them all in many shapes, a truth greater in glory by far than can be circumscribed by any creed or confined by the walls of any church or temple..”[18] To what extent he discovered the truth, often hidden even from those in whose culture he found it and all the more from foreigners, can be revealed in an understanding reading of some of the larger writings like The Transformation of Nature in Art, Figures of Speech or Figures of Thought, Time and Eternity, A New Approach to the Vedas, Hinduism and Buddhism, or even some of the smaller pieces like the two-page article, “The ‘E’ at Delphi.” All these works attest to a truly catholic [universal] perception and an enormous learning and skill both in the reading of myths and in the parabolic interpretation of scriptures.

Coomaraswamy was aided in his labors by being, in every good sense, a believer.[19] With St. Augustine, St. Anselm, and nearly everyone else who has really learned anything, he could say, “I believe that I may understand” and “I understand that I may believe.” His approach to the many ways of thought and life he studied was never profane or merely tolerant. He was a Platonist, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Hermetist, Christian – simultaneously but not exclusively – when he wrote of these world-views, hence he knew whereof he spoke more than the nonbelievers who are wont to take some at least of the names of the Lord in vain. Yet, in a rigorous sense, he was much more than a believer.

Belief may be helpful and even necessary to some stages of understanding, but the knowledge to which he aspired is beyond belief and opinion in the realm of certitude. Coomaraswamy was that type called in Sanskirt jnani, one whose path to realization is primarily intellectual [noetic]. Like Sankaracarya he knew that “there is no other means of obtaining complete and final deliverance except knowledge [gnosis]’;[20] hence his greatest interest in his later years was in metaphysics whose higher reaches are ineffable, being beyond discursive thought and the dualities inherent in language. This does not mean that he was not religious, for that he undoubtedly was; it does mean that his intellect flourished latterly more in the realms beyond religious forms. It seemed always with him as with his beloved Eckhart who cried, “What is truth? If God could backslide from the truth, I would fain cling to truth and let God go.’[21]

The written results of the labors of this man, who was a true polymath with a comprehensive grasp of modern thought and an unparalleled command of the Traditional thought of the world, are impressive in their bulk and richness. Merely to search his writings out, much less to read them, would demand considerable effort so scattered are they in books and periodicals all over the world. They form a body of over five hundred and fifty books and articles, some two hundred book reviews, and a mass of unpublished manuscripts. “All the essays written by Ananda Coomaraswamy,” it has been said, “are linked together like the pillars and girders in a beautifully constructed edifice, though he never wrote a philosophical ‘system’ in the usual sense.”[22] Taken together they seem to embody a respectable synthesis of many phases of Traditional knowledge. And if they do not constitute the “Summa of the Philosophia Perennis (et universalis) based on all orthodox sources whatever, not excluding those of ‘folklore’’[23] that Coomaraswamy himself thought would have to be written, they undoubtedly will by their example and accumulated learning enable the writer of the Summa – supposing there will be such – to bring his task properly to completion.

If the resources of Coomaraswamy’s writings are rich enough to supply many of the materials for such a summa, they are, a fortiori, a vast mine of ideas and information that can be exploited in the studies of the epigom – scholars and students in many fields [sic]. It may well be as Mr. Langdon Warner has said “that our true debt to Ananda Coomaraswamy will not be appreciated during his lifetime and that a century may elapse before art critics and historians of religions and philosophers will turn to his writings for source material.”[24] Since a century seems to be an impossibly long time in this age, it may be well to go into debt now, specifically by borrowing heavily from Coomaraswamy’s numerous and lucid insights into the literature of the world.

* * *

A natural order for a study of Coomaraswamy’s theory of literature readily suggests itself. Since the superior principles in Traditional thought always dictate the nature of the inferior, it will first be necessary to set forth briefly the doctrine concerning the nature and final end of man (all sciences and activities properly being arranged to that end), the nature and purpose of the social order, and the nature and function of art.[25] In the light of these principles, which form the bases of Coomaraswamy’s thought, a statement of his theory of literature can be organized by gathering together, summarizing, and explicating some of his many dicta on literature specifically and by analyzing several of his works of literary criticism. Because a complete theory with all parts treated with the same degree of fullness will not be found in Coomaraswamy’s writings, it will be necessary in some cases to interpret his calculus of art in terms of literature and to deduce in more detail the implications of some of his briefer statements on literature. Lastly, the fruitfulness of his ideas in affording insights, the uses of his theories in explaining certain problems of literary study, and the general worth of his efforts can be assessed.

Although the order of this study presents no difficulties, the nature of the material creates a problem of method. For several reasons, frequent and extensive quotations beyond the ordinary from both Coomaraswamy and his sources will be necessary. Coomaraswamy, it has been observed, avows that his thoughts are not his own in any individual sense and this he constantly demonstrates by quoting from others, not so much at great length as in nearly incredible profusion. His works seem to be the quintessential distillate of thousands of writers who on one occasion or another reveal elements of Traditional thought. In the first place, then, one is faced with a plenitude of material that makes selection difficult. Coomaraswamy’s citations are so cogent, apposite, and authoritative and so economically employed that many can be omitted from an account of his theory only at the cost of reducing the clarity and vigor of his argument which, in the main, is quite alien to most contemporary modes of thought. Extensive quotation from Coomaraswamy and his sources will also serve to reveal the extraordinary richness and suggestiveness of his work as well as his characteristic method of writing.

Secondly, summary in some cases will be difficult, if not impossible, because a relative outsider cannot express many aspects of Traditional thought without distortion. Hence, honesty, if not piety, will dictate frequent quotation of material that cannot be summarized by those not properly qualified. The principle of St. Bonaventura’s dictum is applicable to most of us who examine Coomaraswamy’s writings: “non enim potes noscere verba Pauli, nisi habeas spiritum Pauli” [“You cannot grasp the words of Paul unless you have the spirit of Paul”].

Thirdly, Coomaraswamy himself writes in such a style – lucid, mathematical in its precision and brevity, quite adequate to his thought – that one must often hesitate to paraphrase or summarize. It has been stated, “His pen was an instrument of precision. His closely and tightly woven fabric of thought was the very model of explicit denotation. . . .”[26] Selection and summary there will be, of course, since this is intended to be a work of exposition and not an anthology.

In the main, only the Western versions of Coomaraswamy’s theory will be noted and discussed herein, except in cases where he draws almost entirely upon Eastern sources. Despite the fact that such an emphasis will falsely represent Coomaraswamy’s total thought and persistent orientation, it will better suit our limited purposes for which the idiom of Western thought is generally more intelligible – for most of us, at least. However, enough of Eastern sources will be included both to suggest the widespread occurrence of the doctrine and to elucidate, as only unfamiliar formulations of the doctrine and to elucidate, as only unfamiliar formulation sometimes can, ideas that frequently only seem to be well known and clearly understood. To some degree this will accord with the prospect envisaged by the rigorously orthodox Christian philosopher, Josef Pieper, who speaks of the “wisdom of the East [which is] ready for and apparently in want of absorption in to the intellectual structure of Christian philosophical interpretation and the Christian way of life – or it may also be that it is we who need enrichment through this wisdom, in a quite particular manner.” [27]

Because Coomaraswamy’s method of exposition, imitated to some extent below as well as illustrated by quotations, has certain features generally eschewed in most modern academic scholarship, it may be necessary to add a final word to disarm those who are more interested than he was in historical scholarship, matters of provenience, the tracing of influences, and the particular idiom and strict denotation of the writings he cites and explicates. Coomaraswamy is much like the Schoolmen, he cites whatever expresses well the truth as he understands it. As he frequently quoted, “Omne verum a quocumque dicature, est a Spiritu Sancto” {“Every truth from whomever it is quoted is from the Holy Spirit”]. Since it is stated with even greater authority, “Spiritus ubi vult spirat” [“The Spirit blows where it will” (John 3:8)], it is easy to understand that Coomaraswamy knew that the truth can be expressed in many places, even in the midst of other words less clearly reflecting it. For example, he quotes from Plato or St. Thomas Aquinas that which serves he purpose, the rest, though possibly relevant to his topic, he ignores. He never, it seems, falsifies; he merely develops arguments (from arguer, “to make clear,’ as he himself would observe) with whatever material he finds in the thinkers he generally respects.[28]

Despite the amplitude of the quotations that follow, we must admit that the profundity and richness of Coomaraswamy’s thought – even that concerned specifically with literature – will only be suggested. Enough, however, will be set down to reveal a coherent and pure doctrine (relatively uncontaminated by unorthodox elements), fragments of which are imbedded in much of the critical and imaginative writing of the West, And if only a few of these fragments are here noted, it is because our purpose is to discover the archetypal theory of art and literature and not to explore its manifestations in particular writers.

GLOSSARY

AESTHETIC(s) (a) The branch of philosophy dealing with the creation and nature of works of art as well as responses thereto. Often used in this commonly accepted sense by AKC, though quite reluctantly for lack of a better term. (b) The concern with the affective, sensible, “naturalistic” aspects of works of art, as opposed to their intellectual qualities, the preoccupation of “aesthetes.” Often used in this pejorative sense by AKC, especially in later works, as a term indicating concern with “surfaces.”

ART (a) An operative habit, the capacity for making (or doing) according to the prompting of the Intellect (qv). Art always remains in the artist or workman. (b) That which is produced by art, sometimes used in this sense by AKC for “work of art” or artifact.

ESOTERISM Doctrine or practice relating to the inexpressible elements of Tradition (qv), which only the qualified can conceive for themselves, contrasted with the exteriorization of Tradition, as the spirit (that gives life) is with the letter of a doctrine.

FORM, FORMAL (a) Coincident with idea, image, species, similitude, reason, intellectual and non-material cause of a thing’s being what it is; essential or substantial form…. (b) Actual form, shape, aspect, accidental, as different from essential form.

INTELLECT, INTELLECTUAL The Faculty in soul, “which is uncreated and uncreatable” (Meister Eckhart), capable of knowledge in which the known is assimilated to the knower.

METAPHYSIC(s). Knowledge of the universal, unique, intuitive, direct principal knowledge, non-dual, indeterminate, affirming, fundamental identity of knowing and being, the indefinable basis of knowledge.

MYTH Narrative or dramatic embodiment of metaphysic (v. Chap. IV ‘The Work of Art’)

ORTHODOXY Unbroken accord with the principles of the Traditional metaphysic.

PHILOSOPHIA PERENNIS The enduring and common metaphysical basis of a variety of religious and philosophical forms….

PRINCIPIAL KNOWLEDGE Metaphysical knowledge (qv).

SPIRIT, SPIRITUAL The Holy Spirit, Divine Spirit, Immanent Spirit in man. Often used in this work as a synonym of Intellect (and intellectual).

TRADITION, TRADITIONAL (a) The perennial metaphysic (qv) (b) Any human activity based upon conscious application of the principles of the perennial metaphysic to contingent circumstances.

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[1] Elder Olson, “An Outline of Poetic Theory,” Critics and Criticism (abridged), R S Crane (ed), Chicago, 1957, p.3

[2] “The metaphysical doctrine of universal language is by no means to be thought of as asserting that a universal language was ever actually spoken by any people under the sun, the metaphysical concept of a universal speech is in fact the conception of a single sound. Not that of groups of sounds to be uttered in succession, which is what we mean when we speak of ‘a spoken language’” AKC, “Nnukta = Hermeneia,” Visca-Bharat: Quarterly, August 1936, p. 16.

[3] Ananda K. Coomaraswamy observes, “The myth is always true (or else is no true myth) “ (Figures of Speech or Figures of Thought, London, 1946, p.119. Hereafter cited as ‘Fig’)

[4] “ the scriptural style [is] always (as Clement of Alexandria remarks) ‘parabolic’” (Fig 121)

[5] Cf., Heraelitus, Frag 2

[6] “If Ultimate Truth is one and only, the language of Truth necessarily consists of many dialects, adapted to the needs of different races and individuals “ Marco Pallis in Foreword to Rene Guenon, Introduction to the Study of the Hindu Doctrines, London, 1945, p. 10 (hereafter cited as IHD) In Time and Eternity, p. 59, AKC quotes Wilbur M Urban, The Intelligible World, New York, 1929, p. 471, “The metaphysical idiom of the Great Tradition is the only language that is really intelligible”

[7] Throughout this work metaphysics and philosophy will be distinguished according to the formula of Frithjof Schuon, “What essentially distinguishes the metaphysical from the philosophical proposition is that the former is symbolic and descriptive, in the sense that it makes use of rational modes as symbols to describe or translate knowledge possessing a greater degree of certainty than any knowledge of a sensible order, whereas philosophy . is never anything more than what it expresses.” (The Transcending Unity of Religions, New York, 1953, p. 11. Hereafter cited as TUR.)

[8] “All our sources are conscious of the fundamental identity of all the arts” (Fig 11).

[9] Although their differences may seem to be more striking to many than their similarites, AKC views thinkers like these as being in essential agreement. He respects them all as important representatives of the Perennial Tradition.

[10] Vide Appendix A above

[11] Vide esp Homage to Ananda K Coomaraswamy (Part I – A 70^th Birthday Volume 1947, and Part II – A Memorial Volume, 1952), S Durai Raja Singam (ed), Kuala Lumpur, Malay, and the Festschrift volume, Art and Thought, K. Bharatha Iyer (3d), London, 1948. Also of interest is Gai Eaton, The Richest Vein Eastern Tradition and Modern Thought, London, 1949, esp. Chap. 10, “Two Traditionalists.” In view of the high praise tendered AKC in these works, it has not seemed necessary to justify some of the superlatives applied to him herein; all could easily be documented.

[12] Quoted in Homage to Ananda Coomaraswamy, Part II, S. Durai Raja Singam (ed), np., 1952, p. iv (hereafter cited as Hom).

[13] Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, “Dr. Coomaraswamy’s Talk at His Boston Dinner,” Journal of the Indian Society of Oriental Art, Vol. XV, 1947, A.K. Coomaraswamy Commemoration Volume, Part I, p. 11.

[14] AKC, The Bugbear of Literacy, London, 1949, p. 42 (hereafter cited as BL)

[15] Das verlorene Paradies, Munich, 1938, cited in Fig 122.

[16] From an article in Zalmoxis, II 78, quoted in AKC, “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Indra and Namuci,” Speculum, Vol XIX, January 1944, p.21 (Hereafter this article will be cited as “Sir G”).

[17] Fig 218 V an interesting criticism from the Traditional point of view of scholars like Frazer in Mircea Eliade, Images et Symboles, Paris, 1952, pp.231-35.

[18] AKC, “The Religious Basis of the Forms of Indian Cultures” (an address to the Students’ Religious Association, Ann Arbor, January 1946), reprinted in AKC East and West and Other Essays, Colombo, Ceylon, nd. (hereafter cited as “Relig Basis”).

[19] In the West from Herachtus on (‘most of what is divine escapes recognition through unbelief,” Frag. 86) the importance of belief for understanding has been emphasized by Traditional thinkers. Cf. Isa. 7:9

[20] Quoted from Atma-Bodha in IHD, 283.

[21] Meister Eckhart, Franz Pfeiffer (ed), C de Bevans (trans), London, 1947, Vol I, p. 42 (Hereafter Eckhart will be cited from this two-volume edition by reference in the text to volume and page).

[22] Hom. 4

[23] AKC, Hinduism and Buddhism, New York n.d., p. 86. (This work hereafter cited as H and B).

[24] Hom. Xviii.

[25] Cf., e.g., St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, I, XXV.

[26] Robert A. Parker, Introduction, BL. Ix.

[27] Josef Pieper, The Silence of St. Thomas, New York, 1957, p. 104.

[28] AKC differs from many other modern Traditional writers in the extensiveness of his citations from diverse thinkers, both Traditional and otherwise. His quotations, which are sometimes composite in nature, seem never to be used to give a false impression of any writer. He is not interested in the writer as a personality or possibly even in his total system of thought. For instance, it is not Plato as Plato that he frequently cites. If he turns to Plato’s works, it is with the purpose of marshaling apt and cogent expressions of the truth as he understands it. As for quoting out of context and hence misleadingly, this suspicion will probably have to be investigated by those who have the learning and zeal to do so.

John’s PERENNIALIST POST SAMPLER

• Hogwarts Professor’s First Principles -- and a Menu of Substack Post Possibilities

• Traditional Symbols in Harry Potter and Cormoran Strike: A Perennialist View

• Literary Alchemy: Sacred Science, Sacred Art, and ‘The Alembic of Story’

• The Heart of Ring Composition

• Rowling’s Favorite Painting and What It Suggests about Her Artistry and Meaning

• The Christmas Pig and Sacred Art: Dante and the Symbolism of the Tree and Its Angels

• An Introduction to and Example of Reading Rowling at Four Levels: A Quadrigal Reading of The Christmas Pig

• Reading Rowling the Hard, Right Way versus Enjoying the Surface Story and Discussing Themes: An Introduction to Perennialist Reading

• J. K. Rowling’s Use of Myth and Symbol: Sherrard on ‘Defending Ancient Springs’

• Rowling-Fry Talk about Fantastic Beasts: An Annotated Transcript of Her Remarks

• Rowling’s Soul Triptych Psychomachia: Is It From Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’?