The Trail of Life in the Middle Years PDF Download

Author: Rufus Matthew Jones
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Quakers
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Author: Louis J. Zanine
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 1512809128
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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In Mechanism and Mysticism, Louis J. Zanine provides the first full-length study of Theodore Dreiser's interest in modern scientific research and of the impact of scientific ideas on the thought and work of a writer who would gain fame as a deterministic naturalist, but who would end his life as a mystic pantheist. Dreiser was raised in a household dominated by the fanatical Catholic faith of his father and the superstitious beliefs of his mother. In 1894, having rejected the orthodox Christianity of his upbringing, he underwent a significant intellectual and spiritual revolution, precipitated by his discover y of the evolutionary writings of Darwin, Huxley, and Spencer. The concept of an evolutionary universe provided Dreiser with the philosophical framework for the pessimistic naturalism of his early novels (Sister Carrie, Jennie Gerhardt, The Financier). In the next decades, his discovery of scientific mechanism would reveal a universe that was a well-ordered machine, and it is in the context of Dreiser's reading of the mechanistic philosophy of Jacques Loeb and others that Zanine examines An American Tragedy and The Hand of the Potter. The philosophy of mechanism, combined with his under standing of evolutionary thought, provided Dreiser with a scientific world view that gave him a coherent system of beliefs about human beings' place in the universe, their origins, and the bases of their behavior. Yet Zanine demonstrates that Dreiser never fully adopted the stark materialism or atheism of the mechanists. He continued to have a deeply superstitious side, and a number of experiences with fortune tellers, séances, Ouija boards, and spirit apparitions convinced him of the existence of some controlling supernatural force in the universe. During the same years that he was espousing the principles of mechanistic philosophy in correspondence and conversation with Jacques Loeb, Zanine shows Dreiser was also drawn into speculations about the supernatural through his friendship with the eccentric investigator and author, Charles Fort. In an effort to further his understanding of mechanistic philosophy and to reconcile his faith in the supernatural with the facts of modern science, Dreiser began an intensive period of scientific study in 1927. For the next ten years, he befriended many of America's most eminent scientists, and read numerous works on biology, chemistry, physics, and astronomy. In 1937, at the Carnegie Biological Laboratory at Cold Spring Harbor, he experienced a spiritual epiphany in which he was suddenly able to intuit a Divine Being's presence in all of nature. Dreiser's scientific quest had culminated in a mystical conversion that would dominate the remaining eight years of his life. Mechanism and Mysticism offers substantial insight into the character of one of America's leading literary figures. With its unique brand of interdisciplinary research data, it will be of interest to students and scholars of American studies and literature, twentieth-century history, and history of science and religion.

Author: Rufus M. Jones
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781684227952
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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2023 Reprint of the 1934 U.S. Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition and not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. Rufus Matthew Jones was an American religious leader, writer, magazine editor, philosopher, and college professor. One of the most influential Quakers of the 20th century, he was a Quaker historian and theologian as well as a philosopher. The essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson introduced Jones to the idea of George Fox as one of a great historical succession of mystics. This revelation changed Jones's conception of his family's religion. From the writings of the early Quakers, Jones crystallized the concept of the 'inner light," an idea central in particular to modern liberal Quakerism. "The Inner Light is the doctrine that there is something Divine, 'Something of God' in the human soul," he wrote. This inner light was something integral to the human condition, irrespective of a person's religious conviction. He upheld that God is a personal being with whom human beings could interact. He wrote in The Trail of Life in the Middle Years, "The essential characteristic of [mysticism] is the attainment of a personal conviction by an individual that the human spirit and the divine Spirit have met, have found each other, and are in mutual and reciprocal correspondence as spirit with Spirit."

Author: Donald Pizer
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 0816607680
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Investigates the sources and composition of each of Dreiser's eight novels and interprets the themes and literary devices of his completed works

Author: Rinker Buck
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451659164
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 464

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In the bestselling tradition of Bill Bryson and Tony Horwitz, Rinker Buck's The Oregon Trail is a major work of participatory history: an epic account of traveling the 2,000-mile length of the Oregon Trail the old-fashioned way, in a covered wagon with a team of mules—which hasn't been done in a century—that also tells the rich history of the trail, the people who made the migration, and its significance to the country. Spanning 2,000 miles and traversing six states from Missouri to the Pacific Ocean, the Oregon Trail is the route that made America. In the fifteen years before the Civil War, when 400,000 pioneers used it to emigrate West—historians still regard this as the largest land migration of all time—the trail united the coasts, doubled the size of the country, and laid the groundwork for the railroads. The trail years also solidified the American character: our plucky determination in the face of adversity, our impetuous cycle of financial bubbles and busts, the fractious clash of ethnic populations competing for the same jobs and space. Today, amazingly, the trail is all but forgotten. Rinker Buck is no stranger to grand adventures. The New Yorker described his first travel narrative,Flight of Passage, as “a funny, cocky gem of a book,” and with The Oregon Trailhe seeks to bring the most important road in American history back to life. At once a majestic American journey, a significant work of history, and a personal saga reminiscent of bestsellers by Bill Bryson and Cheryl Strayed, the book tells the story of Buck's 2,000-mile expedition across the plains with tremendous humor and heart. He was accompanied by three cantankerous mules, his boisterous brother, Nick, and an “incurably filthy” Jack Russell terrier named Olive Oyl. Along the way, Buck dodges thunderstorms in Nebraska, chases his runaway mules across miles of Wyoming plains, scouts more than five hundred miles of nearly vanished trail on foot, crosses the Rockies, makes desperate fifty-mile forced marches for water, and repairs so many broken wheels and axels that he nearly reinvents the art of wagon travel itself. Apart from charting his own geographical and emotional adventure, Buck introduces readers to the evangelists, shysters, natives, trailblazers, and everyday dreamers who were among the first of the pioneers to make the journey west. With a rare narrative power, a refreshing candor about his own weakness and mistakes, and an extremely attractive obsession for history and travel,The Oregon Trail draws readers into the journey of a lifetime.

Author: Claus Bernet
Publisher: Peter Lang
ISBN: 9783631589304
Category : Society of Friends
Languages : en
Pages : 162

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Rufus Jones (1863-1948) helped organize the Quäkerspeisung (Quaker feeding effort), saving millions from starvation after the First World War. In Germany he is best known for having travelled to Berlin to seek a personal meeting with Hitler after the Kristallnacht in 1938. And, at the conclusion of a long life devoted to service, it was largely due to Jones that the American Friends Service Committee was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1947. But Jones was also the quintessential «American scholar», seeking to harmonize theory and practice. He was a pivotal figure of the 20th century who stayed in close touch with authors and statesmen the world over. He earned a reputation as a modern mystic and an active pacifist, and was regarded as the moral conscience of his era. His scholarship encompassed education and pedagogy, philosophical questions, church and Quaker history, as well as the political issues of the day. Jones dealt with such issues as justice, democracy, and child-rearing. His ideas are still alive today and still arouse controversy. He was particularly anxious to avoid the cultivation of an elite, pleading instead for individual growth and personality development. Over the course of his life, he was awarded twelve academic titles, taught at numerous universities, delivered countless lectures, and was one of the first theologians to recognise the significance of radio and to make full use of it. To this day Rufus Jones is still honored as a «seer», «Protestant mystic», and even as a «Master Quaker» and «Quaker Giant». It is time also to take a critical look at these honors.

Author: Jay Broadus Hubbell
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : American literature
Languages : en
Pages : 600

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Since its inception, American Literature has been regarded as the preeminent periodical in its field. Written by established scholars as well as the newest and brightest young critics, AL's thought-provoking essays cover a broad spectrum of periods and genres and employ a wide range of methodological and theoretical approaches--the best in American literary criticism. Each issue of American Literature contains articles covering the works of several American authors, from colonial to contemporary, as well as an extensive book review section; a "Brief Mention" section offering citations of new editions and reprints, collections, anthologies, and other professional books; and an "Announcements" section that keeps readers up-to-date on prizes, competitions, conferences, grants, and publishing opportunities.

Author: Patricia Appelbaum
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469623757
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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How did a thirteenth-century Italian friar become one of the best-loved saints in America? Around the nation today, St. Francis of Assisi is embraced as the patron saint of animals, beneficently presiding over hundreds of Blessing of the Animals services on October 4, St. Francis's Catholic feast day. Not only Catholics, however, but Protestants and other Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, and nonreligious Americans commonly name him as one of their favorite spiritual figures. Drawing on a dazzling array of art, music, drama, film, hymns, and prayers, Patricia Appelbaum explains what happened to make St. Francis so familiar and meaningful to so many Americans. Appelbaum traces popular depictions and interpretations of St. Francis from the time when non-Catholic Americans "discovered" him in the nineteenth century to the present. From poet to activist, 1960s hippie to twenty-first-century messenger to Islam, St. Francis has been envisioned in ways that might have surprised the saint himself. Exploring how each vision of St. Francis has been shaped by its own era, Appelbaum reveals how St. Francis has played a sometimes countercultural but always aspirational role in American culture. St. Francis's American story also displays the zest with which Americans borrow, lend, and share elements of their religious lives in everyday practice.

Author: Michael Birkel
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004373748
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 124

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This study explores the reception of mystical texts among Quakers, looking at Robert Barclay and John Cassian, Sarah L. Grubb and Jeanne Guyon, Caroline Stephen and Johannes Tauler, Rufus Jones and Jacob Boehme, and Teresina Havens and Buddhist texts.

Author: Rufus Matthew Jones
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Quakers
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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