Romanticism Comes of Age

by Owen Barfield

Owen Barfield is unique in havin combined the work of a solicitor wit the profession of literature. In the latter his speciality has been the province of speech and words, and the history and philosophy of meaning. His works on these subjects have long won enthusiastic recognition in university circles, but are now reaching a wider public. He has been described by C. S. Lewis as 'the wisest of my unofficial advisers' and T. S. Eliot wrote of his Saving the Appearances that it was 'one of the few books which made me proud to be director of the firm which published them.' He has always been interested in the relation between poetry, philosophy, science and religion, and at the Goethe Centenary he gave a Broadcast talk on the BBC on the third programme on Goethe's scientific writings. He has recently returned from the USA, where he has spent two years as a visiting professor of Philosophy and Letters at Drew University and of English Literature at Brandeis. He early encountered the work of Rudolf Steiiner and soon recognized the immense contribution that Steiner had made towards a true understanding of the world and of man. The essays in this volume are at once the fruit of his study of Steiner's work and a new approach to that work from the angle of English literature. They form perhaps the best introduction to Steiner's work for the English literary mind. Owen Barfield, who died in 1997 shortly after entering his hundredth year, was one of the seminal minds of the twentieth century, of whom C. S. Lewis wrote "he towers above us all." His books have won respect from many writers other than Lewis, among them T. S. Eliot, J. R. R. Tolkein, and Saul Bellows, and John Lukacs. He was born in North London in 1898 and received his B.A. with first-class honors from Wadham College, Oxford, in 1921. He also earned B.C.L., M.A., and B.Litt. degrees from Oxford and was a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He served as a solicitor for twenty-eight years until his retirement from legal practice in 1959. Barfield was a visiting professor at Brandeis and Drew Universities, Hamilton College, the University of Missouri at Columbia, UCLA, SUNY-Stony Brook, and the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. His books include seven others published by The Barfield Press: Romanticism Comes of Age, Worlds Apart: A Dialogue of the 1960s, Unancestral Voice, Speaker's Meaning, What Coleridge Thought, The Rediscovery of Meaning, and History, Guilt and Habit.

Genres: Philosophy, Romanticism, Literature

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1944

About the author

Arthur Owen Barfield was a British philosopher, author, poet, and critic.

Barfield was born in London. He was educated at Highgate School and Wadham College, Oxford and in 1920 received a first class degree in English language and literature. After finishing his B. Litt., which became his third book Poetic Diction, he was a dedicated poet and author for over ten years. After 1934 his profession was as a solicitor in London, from which he retired in 1959 aged 60. Thereafter he had many guest appointments as Visiting Professor in North America. Barfield published numerous essays, books, and articles. His primary focus was on what he called the "evolution of consciousness," which is an idea which occurs frequently in his writings. He is best known as a founding father of Anthroposophy in the English speaking world.

Barfield has been known as "the first and last Inkling". He had a profound influence on C. S. Lewis, and through his books The Silver Trumpet and Poetic Diction (dedicated to C.S. Lewis), an appreciable effect on J. R. R. Tolkien. Lewis was a good friend of Barfield since 1919, and termed Barfield "the best and wisest of my unofficial teachers". That Barfield did not consider philosophy merely intellectually is illustrated by a well-known interchange that took place between Lewis and Barfield. Lewis one day made the mistake of referring to philosophy as "a subject." "It wasn't a subject to Plato," said Barfield, "It was a way." Lewis refers to Barfield as the "Second Friend" in Surprised by Joy:

But the Second Friend is the man who disagrees with you about everything. He is not so much the alter ego as the antiself. Of course he shares your interests; otherwise he would not become your friend at all. But he has approached them all at a different angle. He has read all the right books but has got the wrong thing out of every one. It is as if he spoke your language but mispronounced it. How can he be so nearly right and yet, invariably, just not right?

Barfield and C. S. Lewis met in 1919 and were close friends for 44 years. Barfield was instrumental in converting Lewis to theism during the early period of their friendship which they affectionately called 'The Great War'. Maud also guided Lewis. As well as being friend and teacher to Lewis, Barfield was his legal adviser and trustee. Lewis dedicated his 1936 book Allegory of Love to Barfield. Lewis wrote his 1949 book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe for Lucy Barfield and he dedicated The Voyage of the Dawn Treader to Geoffrey in 1952.

Reviews

[Phillip · Rating 5 out of 5]

This has become my favorite Barfield book. It contains essays he wrote spanning from the late 1920s to the early 1960s. It fills in the gaps to claims he made but doesn't explain in Saving the Appearances. What do I think of Barfield? I enjoy putting together his world view in my own imagination. I don't have to believe him to enjoy it anymore than a reader has to believe in the existence of fantasy worlds to enjoy the stories they are described in.

An added attraction for me to read Barfield is the hope of recognizing elements of his work that remind me of things in the works of his friend C.S. Lewis or his acquaintance J.R.R. Tolkien. Sometimes I feel that seeing these similarities add depth to my understanding of the authors.

I would say Barfield`s work tends toward what we would call New Age today. And his constant reference to Steiner is going to turn off most people. Still the total picture is fun to grasp, and I think, worthwhile.

[Elizabeth Jennings · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of Barfield's essays is top-notch philosophy, explicating both the epistemology of Rudolf Steiner, Goethe, and Coleridge, and the evolution of consciousness as expressed in classic literature such as Dante and Shakespeare. Barfield's thought takes penetrating attention to comprehend, and is well worth the effort. In a time such as now when Romanticism has devolved into dangerous adolescent rebellion against the gifts of the Enlightenment, Barfield addresses issues even more contemporary for our time than his, showing what a mature valuing of the imagination can look like, and showing a way out of the painful dualism.

[Gabriele Cavalleri · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sometimes an interesting read, but it suffers from its great flaws, ranging from the outright pretentious attempts to link steiner's theories to hamlet to his belief that england ranks first in the race of human spiritual evolution. Might add that reading this without knowing anything about steiner's philosophy could prove absolutely useless

[Sean Southard · Rating 3 out of 5]

This probably deserves a 4 or a 5, but the fault is mine, not Barfield’s. A very difficult read for me that I will have to come back to again.

I particularly enjoyed the essays “Man, Thought, and Nature” and “The Fall in Man and Nature.”

[Dan Toft · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are several, very insightful chapters towards the beginning of the book, "Thinking and Thought" in particular. That's not to say that the second half of the book is uninteresting, it's just a little abstract at times.

[Gary D. · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you want to know how Steiner influenced Owen Barfield, this is the book.