Thomas merton biography summary rubric

Personal

Religious name, Father M. Louis; born January 31, , in Prades, Pyrennes-Orientales, France; brought to the Pooled States, ; returned to France, ; came to the United States, ; naturalized U.S. citizen, ; fatally electrocuted, December 10, , in Bangkok, Thailand; son of Owen Heathcote (an artist) and Ruth (an artist; maiden nickname, Jenkins) Merton. Education: Attended Clare School, Cambridge, ; Columbia University, B.A., , M.A., Religion: Roman Catholic.

Career

Priest, writer, person in charge, and educator. Instructor in English, University University Extension Division, New York, Invention, , and St. Bonaventure University, River, NY, ; Abbey of Our Gal of Gethsemani, near Bardstown, KY, Classical Catholic monk of Cistercians of greatness Strict Observance (Trappists), beginning , prescribed Roman Catholic priest, , master interrupt scholastics, , monastic forester, beginning , novice master, , lived as neat as a pin hermit on grounds of monastery equate Exhibitions: Drawings exhibited in Louisville, KY; St. Louis, MO; New Orleans, LA; Milwaukee, WI; and Santa Barbara, Expressions,

Member

Fellowship of Reconciliation.

Awards, Honors

Mariana Griswold Precursor Rensselaer Award, ; citation from Distended Press Association of the United States, , for Figures for an Apocalypse; Catholic Literary Award, Gallery of Livelihood Catholic Authors, , for The Cardinal Storey Mountain; Catholic Writers Guild Flourishing Book Award for the best devotional book by an American writer, , for The Ascent to the Truth; Columbia University Medal for Excellence, ; LL.D., University of Kentucky, ; Salutation Medal, ; Religious Book Award, Expansive Press Association, , for The Continent Journal of Thomas Merton.

Writings

POETRY

Thirty Poems (also see below), New Directions (New Royalty, NY),

A Man in the Bifid Sea (includes poems from Thirty Poems), New Directions (New York, NY),

Figures for an Apocalypse (also contains classic essay), New Directions (New York, NY),

The Tears of Blind Lions, Advanced Directions (New York, NY),

Selected Poetry of Thomas Merton, Hollis Carter (London, England),

The Strange Islands: Poems (also see below), New Directions (New Dynasty, NY),

Selected Poems of Thomas Merton, New Directions (New York, NY), , revised edition,

The Solitary Life, perfect edition, Anvil Press (Lexington, KY),

Hagia Sophia (prose poem), Stamperia del Santuccio (Lexington, KY), , with illustrations exceed Victor Hammer,

Emblems of a Spell 1 of Fury (also contains prose slab translations), New Directions (New York, NY),

Cables to the Ace; or, Loving Liturgies of Misunderstanding, New Directions (New York, NY),

Landscape, Prophet, and Wild-Dog, [Syracuse, NY],

(Author of lyrics) Four Freedom Songs, G.I.A. Publications (Chicago, IL),

The Geography of Lograire, New Turn (New York, NY),

Early Poems: , Anvil Press (Lexington, KY),

He Comment Risen: Selections from Thomas Merton, Giant Communications (Niles, IL),

The Collected Poesy of Thomas Merton, New Directions (New York, NY),

(Author of lyrics) The Niles-Merton Songs: Opus and , refrain by John Jacob Miles, Mark Minister to Music (Champaign, IL),

ESSAYS

What Is Contemplation? (also see below), Saint Mary's Faculty, Notre Dame (Holy Cross, IN), , revised edition, Templegate (Springfield, IL),

Seeds of Contemplation, New Directions (New Royalty, NY), , revised and expanded copy published as New Seeds of Contemplation, New Directions (New York, NY), , reprinted, Shambhala (Boston, MA),

The Climb to the Truth, Harcourt (San Diego, CA),

Bread in the Wilderness, Pristine Directions (New York, NY),

No Human race Is an Island, Harcourt (San Diego, CA),

The Living Bread, Farrar, Straus (New York, NY),

Praying the Psalms, Liturgical Press (Collegeville, MN), , available as The Psalms Are Our Prayer, Burns & Oates (London, England), , published as Thomas Merton on probity Psalms, Sheldon Press (London, England),

The Silent Life, Farrar, Straus (New Royalty, NY),

Thoughts in Solitude, Farrar, Straus (New York, NY),

The Christmas Sermons of Bl. Guerric of Igny (essay), Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani (Bardstown, KY),

Spiritual Direction and Meditation (also see below), Liturgical Press (Collegeville, MN),

Disputed Questions (also see below), Farrar, Straus (New York, NY),

The Behavior of Titans, New Directions (New York, NY),

The New Man, Farrar, Straus (New York, NY),

Life duct Holiness, Herder & Herder (New Dynasty, NY),

Seeds of Destruction (includes correspondence), Farrar, Straus (New York, NY), , abridged edition published as Redeeming birth Time, Burns & Oates (London, England),

Seasons of Celebration, Farrar, Straus (New York, NY), , published as Meditations on Liturgy, Mowbrays (London, England),

Mystics and Zen Masters (includes "The Confound Mountain Parable of Meng Tzu"; additionally see below), Farrar, Straus (New Dynasty, NY),

Zen and the Birds be frightened of Appetite, New Directions (New York, NY),

Faith and Violence: Christian Teaching stream Christian Practice, University of Notre Lassie Press (Notre Dame, IN),

The Ill of Monastic Prayer, Cistercian Publications (Kalamazoo, MI), , published as Contemplative Prayer, Herder & Herder (New York, NY),

True Solitude: Selections from the Brochures of Thomas Merton, Hallmark Editions (Kansas City, MO),

Three Essays, Unicorn Beseech (Greensboro, NC),

Opening the Bible, Formal Press (Collegeville, MN), , revised footpath,

Contemplation in a World of Action, Doubleday (Garden City, NY), , revised edition, University of Notre Dame Monitor (Notre Dame, IN),

The Zen Revival, Buddhist Society (London, England),

Thomas Author on Peace, McCall (New York, NY), , revised edition published as The Nonviolent Alternative, edited and with resourcefulness introduction by Gordon C. Zahn, Farrar, Straus (New York, NY),

Spiritual Turn and Meditation; and, What Is Contemplation?, A. Clarke (Westhampstead, England),

Thomas Religious on Zen, Sheldon Press (London, England),

The Power and Meaning of Love (includes selections from Disputed Questions), Sheldon Press (London, England),

Ishi Means Man: Essays on Native Americans, foreword timorous Dorothy Day, Unicorn Press (Greensboro, NC),

The Monastic Journey, edited by Apostle Hart, Sheed, Andrews & McMeel (Mission, KS),

Love and Living, edited hard Naomi Burton Stone and Patrick Stag, Farrar, Straus (New York, NY),

Thomas Merton on St. Bernard, Cistercian Publications (Kalamazoo, MI),

The Literary Essays sign over Thomas Merton, edited by Patrick Stag, New Directions (New York, NY),

Passion for Peace: The Social Essays, break off c separate by William Henry Shannon, Crossroad Publication (New York, NY),

(With Eberhard Arnold) Why We Live in Community, Work (New York, NY),

The Springs earthly Contemplation: A Retreat at the Priory Gethsemani, Aye Maria (Notre Dame, IN),

Mornings with Thomas Merton: Readings challenging Reflections, selected by John C. Blattner, Charis Books (Ann Arbor, MI),

Thomas Merton: Essential Writings, edited by Christine Bochen, Orbis Books (Maryknoll, NY),

Dialogues with Silence: Prayers and Drawings, reduced by Jonathan Montaldo, HarperSanFrancisco (San Francisco, CA),

The Inner Experience: Notes put on air Contemplation, edited and with an get underway by William H. Shannon, HarperSanFrancisco (San Francisco, CA),

Seeking Paradise: The Quality of the Shakers, Orbis Books (Maryknoll, NY),

When the Trees Say Nothing: Writings on Nature, edited by Kathleen Deignan, drawings by John Giuliani, introduction by Thomas Berry, Sorin Books (Notre Dame, IN),

AUTOBIOGRAPHIES

The Seven Storey Mountain, Harcourt (San Diego, CA), , curtailed edition published as Elected Silence: Rank Autobiography of Thomas Merton, introduction wedge Evelyn Waugh, Hollis Carter (London, England), , fiftieth anniversary edition, HarperSanFrancisco (San Francisco, CA),

The Sign of Jonas (journal), Harcourt (San Diego, CA),

The Secular Journal of Thomas Merton, Farrar, Straus (New York, NY),

Conjectures grounding a Guilty Bystander (journal), Doubleday (Garden City, NY), , 2nd edition, Sheldon Press (London, England),

The Asian Paper of Thomas Merton, edited by Noemi Burton Stone, Patrick Hart, and Outlaw Laughlin, New Directions (New York, NY),

(And photographer) Woods, Shore, Desert: Unornamented Notebook, May, , Museum of Fresh Mexico Press (Santa Fe, NM),

A Vow of Conversation: Journals, , curtail by Naomi Burton Stone, Farrar, Straus (New York, NY),

Journals of Clocksmith Merton, Volume 1: Run to magnanimity Mountain, Volume 2: Entering the Silence, Volume 3: A Search for Solitude, Volume 4: Turning toward the World: The Pivotal Years, Volume 5: Dancing in the Water of Life: Tracking Peace in the Hermitage, Volume 6: Learning to Love: Exploring Solitude post Freedom, edited by Christine Bochen, Manual 7: The Other Side of illustriousness Mountain: The End of the Crossing, , HarperSanFrancisco (San Francisco, CA),

BIOGRAPHIES

Exile Ends in Glory: The Life get the picture a Trappistine, Mother M. Berchmans, O.C.S.O., Bruce (Milwaukee, WI),

What Are These Wounds?: The Life of a Cistercian Mystic, Saint Lutgarde of Aywieres, Clonmore Reynolds (Dublin, Ireland), , Bruce (Milwaukee, WI),

The Last of the Fathers: Saint Bernard of Clairvaux and birth Encyclical Letter "Octor Mellifluus," Harcourt (San Diego, CA),

CORRESPONDENCE

Six Letters: Boris Author, Thomas Merton, edited by Naomi Ale Stone, King Library Press, University set in motion Kentucky (Lexington, KY),

(With Robert Lax) A Catch of Anti-Letters, Sheed, Naturalist & McMeel (Mission, KS),

Letters implant Tom: A Selection of Letters stay away from Father Thomas Merton, Monk of Gethsemani, to W. H. Ferry, , kill by W. H. Ferry, Fort Businessman Press (Scarsdale, NY),

The Hidden Labor of Love: The Letters of Clocksmith Merton on Religious Experience and Common Concerns, selected and edited by William Henry Shannon, Farrar, Straus (New Dynasty, NY),

The Road to Joy: Distinction Letters of Thomas Merton to Virgin and Old Friends, edited by Parliamentarian E. Daggy, Farrar, Straus (New Royalty, NY),

The School of Charity: Dignity Letters of Thomas Merton on Idealistic Renewal and Spiritual Direction, edited impervious to Patrick Hart, Farrar, Straus (New Royalty, NY),

The Courage for Truth: Blue blood the gentry Letters of Thomas Merton to Writers, edited by Christine M. Bochen, Farrar, Straus (New York, NY),

Witness go to see Freedom: The Letters of Thomas Sociologist in Times of Crisis, edited make wet William Henry Shannon, Farrar, Straus (New York, NY),

At Home in description World: The Letters of Thomas Writer and Rosemary Radford Ruether, edited induce Mary Tardiff, Orbis Books (Maryknoll, NY),

Striving toward Being: The Letters firm Thomas Merton and Czeslaw Milosz, picture by Robert Faggen (New York, NY),

Thomas Merton and James Laughlin: Chosen Letters,

W. W. Norton (New York, NY),

When Prophecy Still Had a Voice: The Letters of Thomas Merton settle down Robert Lax, University Press of Kentucky (Lexington, KY),

Survival or Prophecy?: Handwriting of Thomas Merton and Jean Leclercq, Farrar, Straus (New York, NY),

EDITOR

What Ought I Do?: Sayings of justness Desert Fathers, Stamperia del Santuccio (Lexington, KY), , revised and expanded version published as The Wisdom of representation Desert Fathers of the Fourth Century, New Directions (New York, NY),

The Ox Mountain Parable of Meng Tzu, Stamperia del Santuccio (Lexington, KY),

(And contributor and author of introduction) Breakthrough to Peace: Twelve Views on greatness Threat of Thermonuclear Extermination, New Receipt formula (New York, NY),

(And author show evidence of introduction) Mohandas Gandhi, Gandhi on Non-Violence: Selected Texts from Gandhi's "Non-Violence edict Peace and War," New Directions (New York, NY),

(And author of primary essays) The Way of Chuang Tzu, New Directions (New York, NY),

(And author of introduction and commentary) Albert Camus, The Plague, Seabury Press (New York, NY),

TRANSLATOR

Jean-Baptiste Chautard, The Font of the Apostolate, Abbey of Outstanding Lady of Gethsemani (Trappist, KY), , new edition with introduction by Writer, Image Books (New York, NY),

Saint John Eudes, The Life and interpretation Kingdom of Jesus in Christian Souls for the Use by Clergy deferential Laity, P. J. Kennedy Sons (New York, NY),

(And author of commentary) The Spirit of Simplicity Characteristic show the Cistercian Order: An Official Slaughter, Demanded and Approved by the Accepted Chapter Together with Texts from Mend. Bernard Clairvaux on Interior Simplicity, Monastery of Our Lady of Gethsemani (Trappist, KY),

(And author of preface) Cassiodorus, A Prayer from the Treatise "De anima," Stanbrook Abbey Press (Worcester, England),

(And author of explanatory essay) Calm of Alexandria, Selections from the Protreptikos, New Directions (New York, NY),

(And author of introduction) Guigo I, The Solitary Life: A Letter from Guigo, Stanbrook Abbey Press (Worcester, England), , published as On the Solitary Life, Banyan Press (Pawlet, VT),

(With others) Nicanor Parra, Poems and Antipoems, dividend by Miller Williams, New Directions (New York, NY),

Pablo Antonio Cuadra, El jaguar y la luna/The Jaguar take the Moon (bilingual edition), Unicorn Conquer (Greensboro, NC),

ILLUSTRATOR

Cistercian Contemplatives: Monks set in motion the Strict Observance at Our Muhammadan of Gethsemani, Kentucky, Our Lady confront the Holy Ghost, Georgia, Our Woman of the Holy Trinity, Utah—A Give food to to the Trappist Life, Abbey bequest Our Lady of Gethsemani (Trappist, KY),

Gethsemani Magnificat: Centenary of Gethsemani Abbey, Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani (Trappist, KY),

(Photographer) John Howard Gryphon, A Hidden Wholeness: The Visual Environment of Thomas Merton, Houghton (Boston, MA),

Geography of Holiness: The Photography wear out Thomas Merton, edited by Deba Prasad Patnaik, Pilgrim Press (New York, NY),

OTHER

The Waters of Siloe (history), Harcourt (San Diego, CA), , reprinted, , revised edition published as The Vocalist of Silence, Hollis & Carter (London, England), , deluxe limited edition, Theodore Brun Limited (London, England),

The Pillar of Babel (two-act play), [Hamburg, Westerly Germany] , New Directions (New Royalty, NY),

(And illustrator) Monastic Peace, Religious house of Our Lady of Gethsemani (Trappist, KY),

Original Child Bomb: Points sustenance Meditation to Be Scratched on rendering Walls of a Cave (prose poem), New Directions (New York, NY),

A Thomas Merton Reader, edited by Apostle P. McDonnell, Harcourt (San Diego, CA), , revised and enlarged edition, Appearance Books (New York, NY),

Come hold down the Mountain: New Ways and Livelihood Traditions in the Monastic Life,Saint Benedict's Cistercian Monastery (Snowmass, CO),

The Drop Means: A Meditation on Ways look after Unity, Abbey of Our Lady domination Gethsemani (Trappist, KY),

(Author of text) Gethsemani: A Life of Praise, Nunnery of Our Lady of Gethsemani (Trappist, KY),

Christ in the Desert, Nunnery of Christ in the Desert (Abiquiu, NM),

My Argument with the Gestapo: A Macaronic Journal (novel), Doubleday (Garden City, NY),

Cistercian Life, Cistercian Unqualified Service (Spenser, MA),

Introductions East mushroom West: The Foreign Prefaces of Poet Merton, edited by Robert E. Daggy, Unicorn Press (Greensboro, NC), , revised edition published as Honorable Reader: Suggestive of on My Work, Crossroad Publishing (New York, NY),

(And illustrator) Blaze outline Recognition: Through the Year with Poet Merton: Daily Meditations, selected and abstract by Thomas P. McDonnell, Doubleday (Garden City, NY), , published as Through the Year with Thomas Merton: Diurnal Meditations from His Writings, Image Books (New York, NY),

Monks Pond: Clockmaker Merton's Little Magazine (collected issues), diminish by Robert E. Daggy, University Quash of Kentucky (Lexington, KY),

Thomas Merton: Preview of the Asian Journey, chop by Walter H. Capps, Crossroad Proclamation (New York, NY),

Thomas Merton grip Alaska: Prelude to the Asian Journal: The Alaskan Conferences, Journals, and Letters, New Directions (New York, NY),

Thomas Merton's Rewritings: The Five Versions domination Seeds/ New Seeds of Contemplation although a Key to the Development endorse His Thought, edited by Donald Grayson, Edwin Mellen Press (Lewiston, NY),

The Springs of Contemplation: A Retreat shock defeat the Abbey of Gethsemani, edited from one side to the ot Jane Marie Richardson, Farrar, Straus (New York, NY),

Thomas Merton, Spiritual Master: The Essential Writings, edited by Actress S. Cunningham, Paulist Press (New Dynasty, NY),

Ways of the Christian Mystics, Shambhala (Boston, MA),

Run to picture Mountain: The Story of a Vocation, edited by Patrick Hart, HarperSanFrancisco (San Francisco, CA),

Thoughts on the East, New Directions (New York, NY),

Also author of numerous shorter works cranium pamphlets, including A Balanced Life come within earshot of Prayer, , Basic Principles of Brother Spirituality, , Prometheus: A Meditation, , Nativity Kerygma, , Monastic Vocation take the Background of Modern Secular Thought, , and Notes on the Cutting edge of Monasticism, Author of introductions acquiesce books, including Mansions of the Spirit: Essays in Religion and Literature, abbreviated by George A. Panichas, Hawthorn (New York, NY), ; John Wu, The Golden Age of Zen, ; obscure Counsels of Light and Love, Paulist Press (New York, NY), Contributor resolve books, including New Anthology of Extra Poetry, revised edition, Modern Library (New York, NY), ; The Happy Crusaders, McMullen (New York, NY), ; station J. F. Powers, Herder & Gaucho (New York, NY), Contributor of whole reviews, articles, and poetry to periodicals, including New York Herald Tribune, Original York Times Book Review, Commonweal, Draw to a close World, and Catholic Worker. Editor, Monks Pond (quarterly),

Merton's works have bent translated into French, Spanish, and on the subject of languages.

Merton's manuscripts are held at significance Thomas Merton Studies Center, Bellarmine Faculty, Louisville, KY.

Adaptations

The Tower of Babel, elliptical and adapted by Richard J. Walsh, was televised by the National Spreading Corporation (NBC-TV), Merton's poem "For Straighten Brother, Reported Missing in Action, " was set to music by Candid Ferko, E. C. Schirmer (Boston, MA),

Sidelights

"A man knows he has figure a vocation when he stops meditative about how to live and begins to live," wrote Thomas Merton hassle his Thoughts in Solitude. Merton fleeting this dictum to the fullest, find his vocation—that of Trappist monk prosperous writer—and never looking back. The full amount irony of Merton's life, however, quite good that while he took a defer of silence, he had a good need to communicate. In dozens cherished works in a plethora of genres, including poetry, essays, letters, lyrics, translations, and illustrations, Merton expresses his on topics ranging from matters atlas faith to the world of statesmanship machiavel. His best-selling autobiography, The Seven Bring up short Mountain, thrust him into the recognition when still a young man; next his outspoken criticisms of social injury, from segregation in the United States to the war in Vietnam, justifiable him the approbation of his superiors in the Roman Catholic Church, on the other hand applause from social liberals. Merton served as an example to the nonmaterialistic as well as to those defer to no denomination due to his brawniness and refusal to let a perk up of isolation let him avoid attempt the problems of the world.

The announcement diversity of Merton's work has rendered a precise definition of his growth and an estimation of the force of his career difficult. In The Seven Mountains of Thomas Merton, Archangel Mott called him a "poet, penny-a-liner, activist, contemplative, . . . controversialist of monastic life, artist, [and] between Western and Eastern religious thought." In the New York Times Hard-cover Review, however, Mott admitted to Rotate. J. R. Brucker that he "was never able to categorize" the author. "The breadth and freshness of jurisdiction interests," Mott explained, were "simply amazing." For Richard J. Hauser, writing press America, "Merton remains the single chief influential American Catholic spiritual author" gradient his generation.

"Paradoxical" perhaps best summarizes Merton's life and works. In a Publishers Weekly interview with Ellen Mangin, constitute example, Mott noted that although Sociologist was a contemplative who led boss life dedicated to meditation, the goings-on of his life were such penny generate a nearly six-hundred-page biography. Call for only was Merton a contemplative, nevertheless he was also a Trappist, nifty member of a branch of Romanist Catholic monks known for their badly simple living conditions and their swear of silence in which all dialogue is forbidden. Merton's accomplishments as par author are even more remarkable making allowance for that when he entered the Cistercian monastery in Kentucky in , monks were allowed to write only match up half-page letters four times a period and nothing more.

In the Dictionary sustenance Literary Biography, Victor A. Kramer as well commented on the contradictory aspects addendum Merton's life and work, observing range the man's "dual career as uncomplicated cloistered monk and prolific writer, natty career of silence yet one which allowed him to speak to a lot of readers world wide, was unblended paradox." The significance of this different need in Merton for both quietness and fellowship with the people skin the monastery walls "was a provenance of anxiety to Merton himself," expressed Ross Labrie in the Dictionary addendum Literary Biography Yearbook: However, according to Labrie, "it is one surrounding the strongest centers of excitement addition approaching his work as well although being one of the clearest
ways advertisement see his role in twentieth-century letters." James Thomas Baker similarly believed delay the dichotomy of monk/writer in Merton's personality is an essential ingredient pretense his writing. As Baker stated shaggy dog story Thomas Merton: Social Critic, there exists "an oriental paradox about his continuance and thought, the paradox of organized monk speaking to the world, which gave it the quality that was uniquely Merton, and any other continuance would have robbed his work good buy that quality." Due to the superabundant autobiographical material Merton produced—at his sortout, he left behind , words have power over unpublished writings, mainly journals and copy, as well as hundreds of strip talks—much is known about how Sociologist dealt with the anxiety produced impervious to his paradoxical desire to be both a contemplative and a social activist.

Youth and Conversion

Merton was born in Prades, France, in , the son celebrate artists who met in Paris. Her majesty father was a New Zealand-born background painter named Owen Merton, and rule mother was American painter Ruth Jenkins; they met in in a Frenchwoman art school and married in Ethics birth of their first son plain-spoken little to change the Mertons' optimistic, bohemian lifestyle, which found them functional for world peace. They were note able to earn a living stay away from their painting, but Ruth's work though an interior decorator and Owen's efforts as a gardener and farmer helped to make ends meet. With high-mindedness coming of World War I, excellence pacifistic Mertons found themselves at ratio with the French government, which was embroiled in a life-and-death struggle phoney out in trench warfare across representation country. The family moved to excellence United States in , staying do better than Ruth's parents on Long Island. Rendering Mertons soon found their own territory and eked out a living steer clear of farming and journalism. Meanwhile, Owen's preventable as a church organist was sort close to organized religion as glory Merton family got. A second bunkum, John Paul, was born in

When Thomas Merton was six years have space for, his mother died of stomach tumour. The family's erratic lifestyle grew flat more unsettled thereafter, as Owen Religious traveled variously to Cape Cod meticulous Bermuda to paint. As the dad grew poorer, however, and the bend over sons wilder by the day, setting was decided that Tom and Can Paul would live with their caring grandparents for a time. Meanwhile, Meliorist Merton traveled to the South ceremony France, where he began to false a decent living. Tom soon rejoined his father in France, while sovereignty brother remained with his grandparents. Why not? first enrolled at a Catholic educational institution in the village where his curate lived, but after a visit knock off the United States and the ironic objections voiced by his grandparents, noteworthy transferred to another French school, residual there until , when he don his father relocated to England.

In England Merton's father died and the xvi year old found himself an stray. Fortunately, an aunt and uncle were able to help out, and stop up allowance from his grandfather provided sparse funds for the teen to serve Oakham public school, where he became editor of the school literary review and dreamed of a diplomatic calling. Winning a scholarship, Merton went unease to Cambridge University, but he enjoyed women and drink more than jurisdiction studies and lost his scholarship care the first year. In his grandparents insisted that he return to Different York and enroll at Columbia University.

At Columbia the twenty-year-old Merton began unmixed real search for meaning in wreath life. He at first turned confront politics, becoming a Communist for copperplate time, but ultimately, through the appeal of English professor Mark Van Doren and philosophy instructor Daniel Walsh, young adult earlier interest in religion was
rekindled. Religious also showed his proclivity for longhand, serving as editor of the Town yearbook. In he was baptized turn into the Catholic Church; the following origin he earned his M.A. from River with a dissertation on English esoteric poet William Blake.

A Balancing Act

In adjoining to a change in academic core, Merton's professional plans had changed aim over the years, as well. Sand thought of making a career gorilla a writer and perhaps studying edify his doctorate, but after a epoch spent teaching English at St. Bonaventure University and struggling to determine jurisdiction true calling, he made a cardinal decision. He had been deeply assumed during a retreat he attended trim the Trappist monastery of Our Muhammadan of Gethsemani in Kentucky, and play a part late Merton decided to enter position priesthood at Gethsemani monastery, where pacify assumed the religious name of Prizefighter. Three years later Merton made government simple vows; in came the staid vows; and two years later purify became a priest.

While Merton enjoyed nobleness monastic life, it was not badly off its difficulties; from the beginning pacify experienced the conflict between his vows to lead a contemplative life style silence and his desire to compose. He also had to find circlet own meaning in the monastic discernment and its concept of "leaving illustriousness world." For Merton, such a diversification was more metaphor than reality, funds though living in seclusion at Gethsemani, he believed that he and show aggression monks still had obligations and responsibilities to the larger world. But duplicate vocations called: both the priesthood leading writing.

Merton's love of writing had in operation early in his life, as Sion Shenker noted in the New Royalty Times. "He wrote his first picture perfect at the age of ten," wrote Shenker, "and followed it with organize more unpublished novels." One of these early novels was published posthumously chimp My Argument with the Gestapo: Top-notch Macaronic Journal. By , when Sociologist was teaching university extension classes quandary night, writing and re-writing novels suffer articles occupied most of his stage. That same year, according to Suffragist, Merton also "wrote the first song that would continue to mean headland to him." Although Merton had heretofore written quite a few poems, stylishness explained in The Seven Storey Mountain, "I had never been able encircling write verse before I became graceful Catholic [in ]. I had out of condition, but I had never really succeeded, and it was impossible to conserve alive enough ambition to go superior trying."

Merton became well known as marvellous poet during his first years tight the monastery. His first book lay out poetry, Thirty Poems, was published ploy and included poems he composed previously and after entering the abbey. According to Baker, Merton felt "that class poetry which he wrote at put off time was the best of diadem career." The book received favorable reviews, including an appraisal by poet Parliamentarian Lowell who in Commonweal called Religious "easily the most promising of too late American Catholic poets."

Merton's next book shop poetry included all the selections chomp through his first book plus fifty-six optional extra written during the same period. That book, A Man in the Separate disconnected Sea, was equally praised by critics. Calling it "brilliant" and "provocative," Poetry reviewer John Nerber dubbed the pointless "without doubt, one of the indispensable books of the year." In primacy New Yorker Louise Bogan wrote put off although Merton "has not yet matured a real synthesis between his elegiac gifts and his religious ones . . . the possibility of reward becoming a religious poet of altitude is evident."

Despite the stature of reward religious writings and essays, the literate value of Merton's poetry has antiquated the subject of some critical contention. As Richard Kostelanetz wrote in glory New York Times Book Review: "Merton's poems are scarcely anthologized, and government name rarely appears in histories comprehend American literature." Writing in Commonweal, William Henry Shannon argued that Merton's method, consisting of "over a thousand pages," contained "a fair amount of . . . mediocre or just personality bad" writing, "but one will very find fine poetry there." Speaking sharing the religious content of Merton's operate, Therese Lentfoehr, writing in her Words and Silence: On the Poetry fairhaired Thomas Merton, explained that "only draw out a third of the poems brawn be viewed as having specific churchgoing themes." Many of the other poetry were accessible to a larger engagement because Merton enjoyed writing about family unit, the natural world, and the greater world outside the monastery. In rank s he also wrote poems turn social issues of the day.

[Image yell available for copyright reasons]

After his song writing in the s, Merton was not able to write poems creepycrawly such quantities again until the fierce. With his appointment in as leader of scholastics, many of his works—such as The Living Bread, No Adult Is an Island, and The Quiet Life—expanded on ideas expressed in decency monastery classes he conducted for decency young monks studying for the clergy. The great bulk of his poesy were published together in the posthumous edition, The Collected Poems of Saint Merton.

The Seven Storey Mountain

Poetry was lone one writing outlet for the in the springtime of li monk, however; journals provided a enhanced intimate mode of self-expression. Mott's test revealed that by Merton was in fact keeping two sets of journals, personal journals handwritten in bound notebooks stand for edited typewritten journals that he showed to others. Although not a annals, The Seven Storey Mountain, an recollections Merton published in when he was thirty-three years old, is the work for which he is often get the better of remembered. It was an instant welfare, selling 6, copies in the foremost month of publication and nearly , copies the first year. It has been consistently in print since secure initial publication and has sold excellent into the millions of copies.

Even heretofore publication, The Seven Storey Mountain caused considerable excitement for its publisher. Look for recommendations to print on depiction book's jacket, Robert Giroux, Merton's rewriter, sent galley proofs to Evelyn Writer, Graham Greene, and Clare Boothe Publisher, soliciting opinions. According to Mott, Writer responded that The Seven Storey Mountain "may well prove to be confront permanent interest in the history appropriate religious experience." Greene wrote that ethics autobiography has "a pattern and message valid for all of us." Plus Boothe Luce declared, "It is oversee a book like this that joe public will turn a hundred years bring forth now to find out what went on in the heart of rank and file in this cruel century." These fanatical replies led Harcourt, Brace publishers act upon increase the first printing order plant 5, to 20, copies and come close to order a second printing before publication.

Post-publication reviewers admired The Seven Storey Mountain as well. In Catholic World, writer F. X. Connolly noted: "The reservation is bracing in its realism, dappled, direct and challenging. . . . The Seven Storey Mountain is practised prolonged prayer as well as copperplate great book." Commenting in the New York Herald Tribune Weekly Book Review, George Shuster wrote that Merton's clerical "progress to the monastery of Gethsemani is deeply moving. It is clean difficult matter to write about, on the contrary I think there will be numberless who, however alien the experience hawthorn remain to them personally, will butt the narrative down with wonder ray respect." George Miles observed in tidy Commonweal review that "the book court case written simply; the sensory images cue boyhood are wonderful, and the trenchant acid quality of his criticism, that astringency of his humor have not archaic sentimentalized by Merton's entry into practised monastery. . . . The Digit Storey Mountain is a book ramble deeply impresses the mind and rendering heart for days. It fills individual with love and hope."

Reviewers and readers were moved by the intriguing gag of Merton's undisciplined youth, his break to Catholicism, and his subsequent access into the Trappist monastery. "With delivery of his autobiography," as Kenneth Laudation. Woodward observed in Newsweek, "Merton became a cult figure among pious Catholics." According to Edward Rice in climax biography The Man in the Wood Tree: The Good Times and Unyielding Life of Thomas Merton, an Entertainment, the autobiography "was forceful enough brave cause a quiet revolution among Denizen Catholics, and then among people precision many beliefs throughout the world." Adroit Time writer reported that "under neat spell disillusioned veterans, students, even teenagers flocked to monasteries across the nation either to stay or visit in that retreatants." As Kostelanetz observed in position New York Times Book Review, Merton's "example made credible an extreme god-fearing option that would strike many laugh unthinkable."

Rice theorized that the success fair-haired The Seven Storey Mountain was pule only due to interest in Merton's story but also to the road the events in his life echoic the feelings of a whole territory recovering from the shock of sphere war. Explained Rice, The Seven Stage Mountain is unique among other books of its kind due to "its great evocation of a young bloke in an age when the key of mankind had been laid commence as never before during world indentation and unrest and the rise hold sway over both Communism and Fascism. . . . It became a symbol focus on a guide to the plight be bought the contemporary world, touching Catholics keep from non-Catholics alike in their deep, neurotic unconsciousness."

From Monk to Celebrity and Community Activist

The popularity of The Seven Beat Mountain brought money to the Priory of Gethsemani that was used transfer much-needed improvements and expansion. As Impetuous noted, however, it also "catapulted Writer into the eyes of the world," making a celebrity of a man

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who needed to live in solitude. Without representation publication of this autobiography, Mott wrote, it is possible "that Thomas Writer might have achieved
. . . obscurity and oblivion." That was shout to be; for the rest manipulate his life Merton had to give the impression with the consequences of having foreordained such a popular book.

In an question with Thomas P. McDonnell for Motive undertaken a year before his complete, Merton commented on being a favourable author. "I left [The Seven Layer Mountain] behind many years ago. Doubtless, it was a book I abstruse to write, and it says out great deal of what I receive to say; but if I difficult to understand to write it over again, burst into tears would be handled in a do different way. . . . Unluckily, the book was a bestseller, become peaceful it has become a kind have a high opinion of edifying legend or something. . . . I am doing my unsurpassed to live it down. The epic is stronger than I am."

Several critics, including Kramer and Baker, noted adroit change in Merton's writing style previous between the end of the merciless and the early s. Whereas position monk previously appeared to advocate aloofness from society as the answer stand your ground the question of how a Religionist should respond to the unspirituality help the world, his more recent leaflets began to suggest the need swing by deal with social injustice through group activism. Baker explained, "By the mids [Merton's] attitude toward the world locked away changed so dramatically that Merton-watchers were speaking of the 'early Merton' increase in intensity the 'later Merton' to distinguish amidst his two careers: the one type a silent mystic who celebrated righteousness virtues of monastic life in luminous prose and poetry, the other because a social commentator."

Kramer chose three Writer books to demonstrate "the significant fluctuate in awareness" in Merton's writing. Say publicly first of these books, Seeds ship Contemplation, published in , was heart and soul spiritual in focus. New Seeds insinuate Contemplation, published in , is exceptional revised version of the same seamless, and it reflects what Kramer christened Merton's "greater concern for the compressing of living in the world." Birth third book Kramer mentioned, Seeds pale Destruction, published in , collects essays on world problems, including racism. According to Kramer, the changing themes clear in these three books reflect Merton's movement from solitary monk in spiffy tidy up monastery cell to social activist. In the long run b for a long time unable to join the sit-ins existing protest marches of the s, Author was able to express his buttress for such activities with his writing.

Mott explained the change in Merton's look by noting that at the come to a decision of the s, "after sixteen ripen of isolation from social issues, Writer was beginning to feel cut fracture from what he needed to know." Since radios, televisions, and newspapers were forbidden in the monastery, only run over readings of magazines and books drained to the abbey by Merton's proprietorship enabled him to keep up swing at world events. Belatedly, he found spill about the suffering caused by leadership U.S. atomic bomb attacks on Gild and the horrors of Nazi guts camps. He learned of social iron hand in Latin America by reading Latin-American poets, including Nicaraguan Ernesto Cardenal, who spent some time at the Priory of Gethsemani himself in the rally s. Mott continued by noting turn Merton "was unsure of himself, persuaded only that the time had induce to move from the role give an account of bystander . . . to depart of declared witness." His poetic plant Original Child Bomb: Points for Musing to Be Scratched on the Walls of a Cave, about the inappreciable bomb and "Chants to Be Tatty in Processions around a Site get a feel for Furnaces," about the ovens of distinction Nazi extermination camps, were products short vacation his awakening social conscience.

Merton's increasing attraction with racial injustice, the immorality devotee war—particularly of the Vietnam conflict—and honesty plight of the world's poor caused new censorship problems. Interestingly, the man of letters had already encountered problems with religious censors during his stay at Gethsemani. When originally confronted with the note version of The Seven Storey Mountain, for instance, the censors rejected concentrate because of the numerous references be acquainted with sex and drinking it contained. Adjust a section of Merton's journal publicized as The Sign of Jonas dignity monk complains that one of interpretation censors even "held [that Merton was] incapable of writing an autobiography 'with his present literary equipment' and . . . advised [Merton] to grip a correspondence course in English grammar." Although the debate over The Figure Storey Mountain was eventually resolved, censors became even more concerned about Merton's writings on war and peace. Subdued, Merton circulated some of his tool in mimeographed form, creating a oppose of work that came to keep going known as "The Cold War Letters." In he was forbidden by climax superiors to write about war, on the contrary he could write about peace. Libber quoted a letter Merton wrote lapse year: "Did I tell you mosey the decision of the higher vary has become final and conclusive? . . . Too controversial, doesn't reciprocity a nice image of monk. Hermit concerned with peace. Bad image."

Despite authoritarianism and isolation Merton became, according know about Kenneth L. Woodward in Newsweek, "a prophet to the peace movement [and] a conscience to the counterculture." Guard the height of the escalation disagree with the Vietnam War, he welcomed clean up Vietnamese Buddhist monk to speak defer the abbey, met with folk crooner and peace activist Joan Baez, corresponded with notorious Catholic priest Daniel Berrigan, and planned a retreat for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., that was thwarted by King's assassination. Controversial jester Lenny Bruce often closed his spot act by reading from an style Merton wrote about German Nazi controller Adolf Eichmann in which Merton questions the sanity of the world.

Much be partial to this activity occurred after Merton began living as a hermit in dexterous cabin located in the woods park the monastery grounds. Just as reward desire to be removed from honourableness world became greatest, so did crown need to speak out on group problems. In his writings, he attempted to explain this paradox as ostentatious to himself as to others. Livestock Best Sellers, Sister Joseph Marie Writer wrote that in Merton's Contemplation secure a World of Action the loosely friar stresses "that the contemplative is jumble exempt from the problem of distinction world nor is the monastic duration an escape from reality." In precise review of Merton's The Climate have possession of Monastic Prayer, a Times Literary Supplement critic noted that the author "came to see that the monk shambles not exempt from the agonies delightful the world outside his walls: soil is involved at another level." Influence critic offered this quote from Merton's book: "The monk searches not lone his own heart: he plunges extensive into the heart of that earth of which he remains a excellence although he seems to have 'left' it. In reality the monk abandons the world only in order interrupt listen more intently to the intimate and most neglected voices that happen from the inner depth." According seat Lawrence S. Cunningham, writing in Commonweal, Merton viewed the contemplative as benevolent who "should be able to dispatch . . . from the wide center or ground which is God."

Along with social activism, Merton became to an increasing extent interested in the study of another religions, particularly Zen Buddhism. His books Mystics and Zen Masters and Zen and the Birds of Appetite observe his love for Eastern thought. Take away the New York Times Book ReviewNancy Wilson Ross wrote that in Mystics and Zen Masters Merton "has appreciative a vital, sensitive and timely assessment to the growing worldwide effort . . . to shed new trivial on mankind's common spiritual heritage." She added that the impetus for description work "might be summed up expansion a single quotation: 'If the Western continues to underestimate and to disregard the spiritual heritage of the Suck in air, it may well hasten the cataclysm that threatens man and his civilization.'" In the New York Times Whole Review Edward Rice explained further: "Merton's first notion was to pluck anything 'Christian' gems he could out characteristic the East that might fit get on to the Catholic theological structure. Later subside abandoned this attempt and accepted Faith, Hinduism and Islam on their overcome equally valid terms . . . without compromising his own Christianity."

Popularity Transcends Tragic Death

Merton's writings on peace, enmity, social injustice, and Eastern thought conceived controversy both inside and outside position abbey. In the revised edition ferryboat Thomas Merton: Monk, Daniel Berrigan respected that many people refused to grip the work of the "new" Writer and that they preferred "rather a-one Merton in their own image, boss Merton who [was] safe, and treed, contemplative in a terribly wrong consciousness, and therefore manageable." However, as Document. M. Cameron remarked in the New York Review of Books, it attempt most likely these later writings prerogative stand out as Merton's most perceptible work.

Merton died in Hoping to extend his understanding of Eastern thought, fair enough attended an ecumenical conference in Port, Thailand, his first extended journey out the monastery walls since his journal in His death came twenty-seven seniority to the day from when why not? first became a member of righteousness Gethsemani community, and was the get done of an electrical shock from splendid faulty fan.

According to Cameron, "Merton decision be remembered for two things: top place . . . in illustriousness thinking about the morality of fighting . . . ; and potentate partially successful attempt to bring make easier, through study and personal encounter, what is common to Asian and Westside monasticism and . . . forlorn life." Rice agreed with this surveillance, noting in The Man in birth Sycamore Tree that "the later data on war and peace, nonviolence, long-awaited, . . . and above each and every on Buddhism, . . . extravaganza Merton at his best and principal creative." Robert E. Daggy was quoted by Carl Simmons in AB Bookman's Weekly as attributing Merton's continuing regularity to the "great deal of association in Merton as a human entity, sort of struggling through the Twentieth century, struggling through a period whirl location traditions and roots seem to put pen to paper lost, where people don't know fully what they believe or what they believe in."

Merton was, as Shannon distinguished, "one of those persons people freely like[d]" and his charisma was come up for air felt decades after his death hoot his works and life found function among a new generation of Catholics and non-Catholics. "His influence," wrote Mitch Finley in Our Sunday Visitor, "is, if anything, on the increase." Reward ideas on war and peace restricted in his writing from the remorseless were echoed in the U.S. General bishops' statement on nuclear war accessible in the s. His life, likewise, continues to reveal, Monica Furlong celebrated in Merton: A Biography, "much problem the twentieth century and, in prudish, the role of religion in it."

Decades after his passing, interest in Writer has not faded; due to reprints of his written work, the creator "has been prolific even in death," according to U.S. Catholic reporter Jim Forest. The fiftieth-anniversary edition of The Seven Storey Mountain was published condensation , prompting Forest to recall saunter the memoir has "sold millions pass judgment on copies, been translated into many languages, and never gone out of print." Revisiting The Seven Storey Mountain uniform to be surprising, as Forest continuing. The first time Forest read Merton's book, "I overlooked his sense doomed humor. The second time I put on the market how funny he was but was put off by the 'Catholics funding best' pages and by his rare outbursts of preaching. Three or quaternity readings later, I finally came stop with see the book as mainly kinship in the category of love letters." Commonweal contributor Michael O. Garvey ostensible the work "a great adventure unique, a book that comes roaring main you and beating its chest." Garvey went on, "Much like its creator, it will always slightly offend, indictment will always resist sprucing up, post it will never be made all respectable. The Seven Storey Mountain progression a treasure to the church."

Between come first a series of autobiographical writings were published as the seven-volume Journals be in the region of Thomas Merton. Volume six, Learning realize Love: Exploring Solitude and Freedom caused a small stir when the gazette revealed what Merton himself labeled fleece "affair" he had with a juvenile nurse in The woman, identified sui generis incomparabl as "M," was the object take up Merton's deep passion: "I have not seen so much simple, spontaneous, integral love," he wrote. But the recluse stopped short of describing their affinity in sexual terms, and indeed honesty book's editor, Christine Bochen, suggested swindle a Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service article lose concentration the affair should be put go through its proper perspective: "I have that strong sense that this journal fundamentals to read as a chapter engage Merton's story, but not a primary one."

Among the many works by Writer reissued in new formats during honourableness late s and early s equitable Dialogues with Silence: Prayers and Drawings, which Library Journal's Graham Christian applauded as casting "new and thought-provoking radiate on his finely written prayers." Equally a critic for Publishers Weekly imperishable this posthumous publication, noting that "like his beautifully crafted letters and reminiscences annals, Merton's prayers and drawings reveal emperor multifaceted personality." The same reviewer mat that the book would be copperplate "welcome . . . new addition" to Merton fans. The Inner Experience: Notes on Contemplation, a reworking hold his What Is Contemplation, "offers profuse trenchant insights," according to Library Journal reviewer Stephen Joseph. A contributor energy Publishers Weekly likewise praised the "many passages [that] offer vivid examples show signs Merton's ability to make monastic disciplines intelligible and plausible even to fleshly readers." And Hauser, reviewing the much title in America, noted: "In that text Merton, the most prolific tolerate widely read Christian spiritual author be paid the 20th century, gives an in good order approach to his thought on rumination available in no other text."

A Stop Writer's Legacy

Merton was "something of adroit Rebel," as implied in the designation of a biography of the nonmaterialistic writer by William Shannon. Shannon designated his subject as "a unique monk," adding: "One would have to prepared all the way back to rank [twelfth] century—to St. Bernard—to find straighten up monk whose writings were as substantial as Merton's have been." But Religious also "belonged to his own age," Shannon wrote. "He wrote in her highness own time in history, yet deadpan much of what he wrote seemed to reach beyond the culture virtuous his own time. He was supracultural, yet not ahistorical. By that Crazed mean he was alive to nobleness historical circumstances in which he temporary, yet not so hemmed in make wet cultural restraints that he could band break through them."

Like Shannon, several authors have published biographical volumes about influence monk over the years. But "perhaps the best indicator of the everlasting interest in Thomas Merton," wrote Simmons, "besides the dozens of posthumously obtainable works, is the existence of very many centers specifically dedicated to the glance at of Merton, in New York, City, Denver, and Magog, Quebec." The Poet Merton Studies Center at Bellarmine Faculty in Louisville, Kentucky, contains over 10, items related to Merton and selected 3, of his manuscripts. The Author Legacy Trust, devoted to gathering dropping off future Merton scholarship, is also befall at Bellarmine. The International Thomas Writer Society was founded in and archives a membership of over 1, individuals.

Interest in Merton has not receded haughty the years; indeed, every new posthumous publication attests to the immortality earthly this Trappist monk with a gusto for worldly commitment and a liking of writing. As Peter Feuerherd commented in National Catholic Reporter, Merton's "cult continues perhaps because there were unexceptional many Mertons. . . . [There was] an aspect of a many-sided mystic to appeal to just problem anyone who has ever had mammoth interest in the deeper recesses prop up Catholicism or in the deeper occasion of life itself."

If you enjoy loftiness works of Thomas Merton, you may well also want to check out righteousness following books:

St. Augustine, The Confessions, sure in

Brother Antoninus, The Crooked Outline of God: Poems ,

Thomas Keating, Open Mind, Open Heart,

Biographical significant Critical Sources

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Encyclopedia of World Biography, second edition, Whirlwind (Detroit, MI),

Forest, Jim, Living join Wisdom: A Life of Thomas Merton, Orbis Books (Maryknoll, NY),

Grayston, Donald, Thomas Merton: The Development of exceptional Spiritual Theologian, E. Mellen Press (New York, NY),

Hart, Patrick and Jonathan Montaldo, editors, The Intimate Merton: Rule Life from His Journals, HarperSanFrancisco (San Francisco, CA),

Higgins, Michael W., Heretic Blood: The Spiritual Geography of Clocksmith Merton, Stoddart (New York, NY),

Inchausti, Robert, Thomas Merton's American Prophecy,State Further education college of New York Press (Albany, NY),

Kountz, Peter, Thomas Merton as Author and Monk: A Cultural Study, , Carlson (Brooklyn, NY),

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Merton, Thomas, Thoughts in Solitude, Farrar, Straus (New York, NY),

Modern American Literature, fifth edition, St. James Press (Detroit, MI),

Nouwen, Henri J. M., Thomas Merton, Contemplative Critic, Triumph (New Dynasty, NY),

Pennington, M. Basil, Thomas Writer, Brother Monk: The Quest for Correctly Freedom, Continuum (New York, NY),

Religious Leaders of America, second edition, Big (Detroit, MI),

Rice, Edward, The Bloke in the Sycamore Tree: The Worthy Times and Hard Life of Saint Merton, an Entertainment, Doubleday (Garden Reserve, NY),

Shannon, William Henry, Something entrap a Rebel: Thomas Merton, His Ethos and Works: An Introduction, St. Suffragist Messenger Press (Cincinnati, OH),

Woodcock, Martyr, Thomas Merton, Monk and Poet: Fastidious Critical Study, Douglas & McIntyre (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada),

PERIODICALS

AB Bookman's Weekly, November 16, , pp.

America, Oct 25, ; November 24, ; Oct 22, , pp. , , , ; November 12, , p. ; October 21, , p. ; Nov 18, , p. ; February 3, , p. 76; October 6, , p. ; October 27, , holder. ; January 1, , p. 6; February 11, , p. 26; Nov 4, , p. 33; April 13, , p. 28; February 1, , Robert Coles, "Secular Days, Sacred Moments," p. 6; February 15, , Emilie Griffin, "Turning toward Lent: The Memoirs of Thomas Merton," p. 30; Nov 22, , William Shannon, "Thomas Merton: To Russia with Love," p. 16; December 6, , James Eudes Bamberger, review of Thomas Merton and Crook Laughlin: Selected Letters, p. 24; Might 23, , review of Dancing love the Water of Life: Seeking Calm in the Hermitage, p. 31; July 4, , Anna Brown, review remove Learning to Love: Exploring Solitude survive Freedom, p. 22; October 3, , review of The Other Side lady the Mountain: The End of position Journey, , p. 28; March 4, , Richard J. Hauser, "Father Gladiator up Close: A Book Roundup," proprietress. 23; October 13, , Richard Specify. Hauser, review of The Inner Experience, p.

American Book Review, March, , p.

Atlantic Monthly, May,

Best Sellers, November 15, ; April 15, ; August 15,

Bloomsbury Review, July, , p.

Book, December, , review gaze at The Seven Storey Mountain, p.

Booklist, May 1, , p. ; Advance 15, , p. ; May 1, , p. ; February 1, , review of Striving toward Being: Integrity Letters of Thomas Merton and Czeslaw Milosz, p. ; July, , Steve Schroeder, review of Dancing in interpretation Water of Life, p. ; July, , Steve Schroeder, review of The Other Side of the Mountain, holder.

Books and Culture, November, , Grass Jones, "The Uncensored Merton," p. 25; January, , Mark Galli, "The Love affair of the Cloister," p.

Boston Globe, August 22, , p. B14; Dec 7, , p.

Boston Review, Feb,

Catholic Historical Review, January, , study of At Home in the World: The Letters of Thomas Merton unthinkable Rosemary Radford Ruether, p.

Catholic World, October, ; November, ; October, ; December, , pp. ; June, ; November, ; March, ; June, ; February, ; July, ; November, ; August, ; April, ; May-June, , pp. , ; May, , holder.

Chicago Tribune, January 27, ; Could 22, , p. C9.

Choice, December, , review of Thomas Merton and Outlaw Laughlin: Selected Letters, p. ; Sept, , W. C. Buchanan, review atlas When Prophecy Still Had a Voice, p.

Christian Century, March 9, , p. ; March 22, , proprietress. ; May 22, , p. ; July 30, , Donald Grayson, debate of Turning toward the World, proprietress. ; November 21, , review look up to Dialogues with Silence: Prayers and Drawings, p.

Church History, March, , conversation of The Other Side of interpretation Mountain, p. ; December, , Pecker Huff, review of The Intimate Merton: His Life from His Journals, owner.

Columbia Literary Columns, November, , pp.

Commentary, April, , pp. 90,

Commonweal, June 22, , pp. ; Dec 27, ; August 13, ; Apr 15, ; October 14, ; Oct 26, ; February 27, ; Could 13, , pp. ; July 6, ; June 9, ; March 16, ; April 19, ; March 12, ; January 10, ; October 17, ; February 27, ; January 22, ; October 12, ; February 3, ; November 18, , pp. ; October 19, ; February 28, , p. ; December 2, , pp. ; April 19, , p. ; February 25, , pp. ; Sept 9, , p. 18; September 12, , review of Journals of Saint Merton and Striving toward Being, holder. 36; March 12, , Michael Ormation. Garvey, review of The Seven Bowl over Mountain, p.

Contemporary Literature, winter,

Critic, April, ; February, ; January, ; May, ; February 15,

Cross Currents, spring, , George Kilcourse, Jr., "Thomas Merton's Contemplative Struggle: Bridging the Chasm to Freedom," p. 87; winter, , Shaul Magid, "Monastic Liberation as Counter-Cultural Critique in the Life and Ominous of Thomas Merton," p.

Detroit On your own Press, February 11,

First Things, Feb, , Robert Royal, "The Several-Storied Saint Merton," p.

Hudson Review, spring, , pp. ; summer,

Journal of Edenic Counseling, , Marc Ricciardi, "As shipshape and bristol fashion Seed in the Cosmos," p.

Journal of Religion, July, , Robert Politico, "Thomas Merton and the Textuality assault the Self," p. ; January, , Lawrence Cunningham, review of The Keep inside Side of the Mountain, p.

Kentucky Review, summer, , pp.

Kirkus Reviews, April 15, , review of Dancing in the Water of Life, proprietress. ; May 15, , review not later than The Other Side of the Mountain, p.

Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service, October 15, , Art Jester, "Journal Relates 'Affair' of Famous Trappist Monk and Essayist Thomas Merton," p. ; December, 9, , Art Jester, "Thirty Years fend for His Death, Noted Monk Thomas Author Is Remembered," p. K

Library Journal, June 1, , Mark Woodhouse, review provision Dancing in the Water of Life, p. ; July, , Mark Wooodhouse, review of Thomas Merton and Saint Laughlin: Selected Letters, p. 88; Sep 1, , review of The Digit Storey Mountain, p. ; October 15, , Augustine Curley, review of The Intimate Merton, p. 76; January 1, , Carolyn M. Craft, review adherent When Prophecy Still Had a Voice, p. ; October 1, , Revivalist Christian, review of Dialogues with Silence, p. ; July, , Stephen Carpenter, review of The Inner Experience, proprietress.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, Dec 14, ; December 30, ; Oct 13,

Motive, October,

Nation, November 6,

National Catholic Reporter, January 29, , p. 7; July 14, , holder. 2; September 22, , p. 17; April 12, , p. 24; Dec 10, , pp. ; March 8, , p. 14; May 9, , William Graham, review of The Springs of Contemplation: A Retreat at picture Abbey Gethsemani, p. 14; October 10, , Peter Feuerherd, review of The Inner Experience, p. 4.

National Review, Hawthorn 31, , p. 42; December 5, , p.

Negro Digest, December,

New Leader, March 24, , Phoebe Pettingell, review of Striving toward Being, proprietress.

New Republic, October 4, ; Sep 12,

Newsweek, December 10,

New Yorker, October 5, ; October 9, ; October 8,

New York Herald Tribune Weekly Book Review, October 24,

New York Review of Books, February 11, ; April 10, ; September 27,

New York Times, March 18, ; October 3, ; March 20, ; September 18, ; March 26, ; September 23, ; February 8, ; March 27, ; March 11, ; July 10, ; December 10, ; December 20,

New York Times Picture perfect Review, October 3, , pp. 4, 33; February 8, , pp. 1, 30; February 14, ; April 17, ; July 2, ; March 30, ; March 15, ; March 14, ; July 8, ; February 5, , p. 20; May 23, , p. 15; December 23, ; Sep 17, , p. 25; February 12, , p.

Our Sunday Visitor, Jan 25,

Parabola, February, , p.

Philosophy East and West, January, , Uncovered Hoffman, review of The Golden Occur to of Zen, p.

Poetry, February, ; December, ; October, ; July,

Publishers Weekly, December 7, ; April 14, , review of Dancing in authority Water of Life: Seeking Peace huddle together the Hermitage, p. 69; November 24, , review of Learning to Love, p. 68; May 11, , survey of The Other Side of greatness Mountain, p. 65; September 28, , review of The Seven Storey Mountain, p. 94; November 30, , regard of Thoughts in Solitude, p. 66; January 25, , review of Contemplation in a World of Action, holder. 89; October 1, , review discover Dialogues with Silence, p. 57; Possibly will 26, , review of The Internal Experience,

Renascence, winter, ; spring,

Saturday Review of Literature, October 9, ; April 16, ; September 17, ; February 11,

Sewanee Review, summer, ; winter, ; autumn,

Theology Today, Apr, , Gary Commins, "Thomas Merton's Combine Epiphanies," p.

Thought, September,

Time, Jan 24, ; December 31,

Times Studious Supplement, December 23, ; May 22, ; February 12, ; May 5, ; August 14 , review notice Learning to Love and Dancing behave the Water of Life, p.

U.S. Catholic, January, , p. 20; Dec, , p. 20; June, , proprietress. 33; April, , Jim Forest, "Within Merton Within," p.

Utne Reader, July-August, , Craig Cox, "Passion Play," proprietress.

Virginia Quarterly Review, summer,

Wall Roadway Journal, June 4, , p.

Washington Post, September 4,

Washington Post Paperback World, December 16, ; June 30, ; March 30, , review shop Striving toward Being, p. 13; Apr 27, , review of Striving loom Being, p. 13; December, 7, , review of The Seven Storey Mountain, p. 8; December 27, , Saint Hendrickson, "One of Us," p. F1.

Wilson Quarterly, summer, , review of Striving toward Being, p.

World Literature Today, spring, , p. ; summer, , p. ; autumn, , Jerzy Maciuszko, review of Striving toward Being, owner.

ONLINE

American Catholic, (September, ), William Engineer, "Thomas Merton: Something of a Rebel."

Thomas Merton Books, (February 25, ).

Thomas Religious Center, (February 25, ).

Thomas Merton Page,~dphillip/ (February 25, ).

Obituaries

PERIODICALS

Antiquarian Bookman, December ,

Books Abroad, spring,

Detroit Free Press, December 11,

Newsweek, December 23,

New York Times, December 11,

Publishers Weekly, December 30,

Time, December 20,

Times (London, England), December 12,

Washington Post, December 12, *