Boucquey Thierry (General Editor). Encyclopedia Of World Writers. 3 volumes
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Instead of sensationalizing the pagan practices as
demonic, Staden illustrates the practices as part of
a complex tribal social system in which retribution
is taken against the cruelties of Spanish and Por-
tuguese enemies as acts of war.
English Versions of Works by Hans Staden
The Adventures of Hans Staden. Washington, D.C.: Al-
hambra, 1998.
The Captivity of Hans Staden of Hesse, in
A.D.
1547–1555: Among the Wild Tribes of Eastern
Brazil. Translated by A. Tootal and edited by R. F.
Burton. New York: Burt Franklin, 1964.
Works about Hans Staden
Goodman, Edward J. The Explorers of South America.
Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992.
Moffit, John F., and Sebastiân Santiago. O Brave New
People: The European Adventure of the American
Indian. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico,
1998.
Sumarokov, Alexander Petrovich
(1718–1777) poet, dramatist
Alexander Sumarokov was born into the nobility
in St. Petersburg. When he was 14, he entered the
Corps of Cadets. After graduating in 1740, he held
positions at court and eventually served as the di-
rector of the Russian Imperial Theater. His ego and
quarrelsome nature made his work difficult, how-
ever, and in 1761 he was forced to retire.
Sumarokov’s writings include a literary jour-
nal, The Industrious Bee, nine tragedies, 12 come-
dies, approximately 150 love songs, 374 verse
Fables, satirical verses,
SONNETs, elegies, odes, and
more. These works reflect Sumarokov’s ENLIGHT-
ENMENT belief that literature should instruct as
well as entertain.
Sumarokov admired French CLASSICISM but
used a simpler, more direct style than that of
Mikhail LOMONOSOV and Feofan PROKOPOVITCH,
whose poetry he disdained. He also observes the
UNITIES in plays such as Hamlet (1748), a loose
adaptation of SHAKESPEARE’s work; and Dimitrii the
Impostor (1771), a well-received work set in Rus-
sia’s Time of Troubles.
Two of Sumarokov’s most significant works
appeared in 1747: “Epistle on the Russian Lan-
guage” and “Epistle on the Art of Poetry.” Both
are composed of rhyming couplets in iambic
hexameter. In the first, Sumarokov asserts that
Russian is an excellent literary language awaiting
only competent writers. In the second, which in-
cludes references to Greek mythology, he ex-
plains the style and subject matter appropriate to
each type of poetry. Sumarokov holds up as
models modern poets such as
MOLIÈRE, LA
FONTAINE, MILTON, POPE, and BOILEAU-DESPRÉAUX,
as well as ancients such as Homer, Sophocles,
Ovid, and Virgil.
Sumarokov’s poems, dramas, and theoretical
works influenced Russian writers for decades. He
was, in William Brown’s words, an “astonishingly
versatile innovator.”
See also NEOCLASSICISM; TRAGEDY.
English Versions of Works by Alexander
Petrovich Sumarokov
Selected Aesthetic Works of Sumarokov and Karamzin.
Translated by Henry M. Nebel Jr. Washington,
D.C.: University Press of America, 1981.
Selected Tragedies of A. P. Sumarokov. Translated by
Richard and Raymond Fortune. Evanston, Ill.:
Northwestern University Press, 1970.
A Work about Alexander Petrovich
Sumarokov
Brown, William Edward. “Alexander Sumarokov and
Russian Classicism,” in A History of Eighteenth-
Century Russian Literature. Ann Arbor, Mich.:
Ardis, 1980.
Swedenborg, Emanual (Emanual
Swedborg)
(1688–1772) scientist, mystic
Emanual Swedenborg was born to Sara Behm and
her husband Jesper Swedberg, a Lutheran bishop,
in the city of Stockholm. Little is known about
Swedenborg’s childhood, but he graduated from
Swedenborg, Emanual 277
the University of Uppsala before traveling to
England to study physics under Isaac Newton.
Over the next several years, in Holland, France,
Germany, and his native Sweden, Swedenborg de-
voted himself to the study of science, publishing
important papers, and working on various inven-
tions. Principia (1734) would have important im-
plications for Western philosophy, as it was in this
work that the idea of the nebulae was first ex-
pounded, a theory later appropriated by the Ger-
man philosopher Immanuel KANT.
The years 1743 through 1745 signaled a dra-
matic transition for Swedenborg, as the focus of his
thought and writing shifted from science and phi-
losophy to religion and mysticism. Swedenborg
professed that around 1743 his intelligence was
miraculously opened, and that he was able to see
into the next world and speak with spirits and an-
gels. From this time until his death, he documented
his spiritual visions and beliefs in books and essays
on various spiritual themes. Among his most im-
portant works is On Heaven and Its Wonders and on
Hell (1758), in which he recounts his mystical ex-
periences and communications with angels.
For the incredible variety and extent of his writ-
ings, Swedenborg is a remarkable figure in the in-
tellectual history of Europe. His philosophical and
religious works have influenced successive genera-
tions of writers and philosophers in Europe and
throughout the world.
English Versions of Works by Emanual
Swedenborg
Apocalypse Explained, Vol. 3. Translated by John
Whitehead. West Chester, Pa.: Swedenborg Foun-
dation, 1995.
Essential Readings. Edited by Michael Stanley. Berke-
ley, Calif.: North Atlantic Books, 2003.
Works about Emanual Swedenborg
Benz, Ernst. Emanual Swedenborg: Visionary Savant
in the Age of Reason. Translated by Nicholas
Goodrick-Clarke. West Chester, Pa.: Swedenborg
Foundation, 2002.
Dusen, Wilson Van. The Presence of Other Worlds.
West Chester, Pa.: Swedenborg Foundation, 2004.
Swainson, W. P. Emanual Swedenborg: The Swedish
Seer. Whitefish, Mont.: Kessinger, 2003.
Swift, Jonathan (1667–1745) poet, satirist
Jonathan Swift was born in Dublin to Abigail Erick
Swift and Jonathan Swift, an English couple who
immigrated to Ireland in 1660. Swift had an un-
usual early life: His father died before Swift was
born, and Swift was kidnapped as a baby for sev-
eral years by a former nurse. After he was returned
to his mother, he was sent to grammar school in
Kilkenny. He later earned a B.A. from Trinity Col-
lege, Dublin, and then traveled to England to work
as a secretary for Sir William Temple. Swift re-
ceived an M.A. from Oxford in 1692, and in 1695
became a priest of the Church of Ireland. He took
a doctor of divinity degree from Trinity in 1702.
Swift suffered throughout his life from
Ménière’s syndrome, an inner ear disorder that
causes vertigo, deafness, and giddiness. Because of
this condition, he was rumored to have gone mad
in the last years of his life. He aided this impression
by leaving his money to a madhouse.
Critical Analysis
During his frequent visits to London, Swift joined
the literary circle surrounding Joseph Addison and
Richard Steele and contributed essays to Steele’s
Tatler. Swift created a memorable narrative per-
sona in the Bickerstaff Papers (1708–09), in which
the character Bickerstaff is a parody of the as-
trologer John Partridge.
By 1710, Swift had become associated with the
ruling Tory party. He shifted his allegiance from
the Whiggish Addison and Steele to a new group
that included Alexander POPE, John Gay, and Dr.
John Arbuthnot, who formed the Scriblerus club.
The Scriblerians met weekly in 1714 collaborating
on satirical works. A decade later, Swift wrote
Drapier’s Letters (1724), in which an Irish drapier
protests against the corruption of a scheme of the
278 Swift, Jonathan
Walpole administration to flood Ireland with
worthless currency. Because Swift called attention
to this scheme, it was withdrawn, and he became a
national hero.
Swift was also a poet. Two of his most notable
poems are “The Lady’s Dressing Room” (1730) and
“A Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed” (1731),
which display an apparent misogyny. Feminist
critic Margaret Doody, however, argues that Swift
was actually more respectful toward women than
many 18th-century writers: “When Swift deals
with the dirty or disagreeable in females, or when
his tone is scolding, he is still urging self-respect,
and he never imposes the injunctions to docility,
obedience, and mental lethargy so commonly re-
peated to women throughout the century.”
Swift’s first major work was A Tale of a Tub
(1704), a wildly experimental satire accompanied
by The Battle of the Books, a more straightforward,
comic piece in which he dramatizes the “ancients
vs. moderns” debate (the hotly contested debate
over whether modern learning had surpassed that
of the Greek and Roman classics) as a literal battle
between ancient and modern books.
Critic Nigel Wood comments that A Tale of a
Tub is “one of the most self-conscious pieces of
writing. The Teller’s desperate desire to please his
readers by incessantly putting them in the picture
so determines the mood of the writing that it
usurps what would seem to be its main function:
to tell a tale.” Before the tale even begins, readers
encounter a parody in the form of a list of other
works by the author, including “A Panegyrical
Essay upon the Number
THREE” and “A general
History of Ears.” The text then goes through
dozens of pages of prefatory material before be-
ginning its ostensible subject, an allegorical story
of three brothers, Peter, Martin, and Jack, who rep-
resent Catholicism, the Church of England, and
Protestant Dissenters, respectively. The narrator
continually strays from his subject, even including
“A Digression in Praise of Digressions.” Swift
scholar Ricardo Quintana has attempted to sum-
marize the text’s main themes: “The two themes of
zeal in religion and of enthusiasm in learning and
knowledge have been inextricably woven into one.”
Norman O. Brown, critic of psychoanalysis, has
analyzed what he terms Swift’s “excremental vi-
sion”: “Any reader of Jonathan Swift knows ...his
analysis of human nature ...becomes the decisive
weapon in his assault on the pretentions, the pride,
even the self-respect of mankind.” Examples of this
can be found in almost all of Swift’s writings, but is
perhaps most pronounced in his poetry. His early
poem “Description of a City Shower” (1710)
vividly portrays the filth of urban living: “Sweep-
ings from Butchers Stalls, Dung, Guts, and Blood,
/ Drown’d Puppies, stinking Sprats, all drench’d in
Mud, / Dead Cats and Turnip-Tops come tumbling
down the Flood.” In “The Lady’s Dressing Room”
Swift humanizes a poetic nymph by revealing what
goes on behind the scenes of a lady’s boudoir.
Strephon is disgusted to learn that “Celia, Celia,
Celia shits!” but the moral of the poem seems to be
that this is only natural: “Such Order from Confu-
sion sprung, / Such gaudy Tulips rais’d from
Dung.”
In his later writings, Swift became concerned
about the condition of the Irish people, most fa-
mously in “A Modest Proposal” (1729), which is
also a masterpiece of irony. Taking on the persona
of a “projector,” he proposes a novel and strikingly
satirical solution to Irish poverty and famine:
I have been assured by a very knowing Ameri-
can of my Acquaintance in London; that a
young healthy Child, well nursed, is, at a Year
old, a most delicious, nourishing, and whole-
some Food; whether Stewed, Roasted, Baked, or
Boiled; and, I make no doubt, that it will
equally serve in a Fricasie, or a Ragoust.
His ironic intentions reveal themselves by the
end of the essay. The projector lists a series of other
solutions, including taxing absentee landlords and
buying Irish rather than imported goods, but dis-
misses them: “let no Man talk to me of these and
the like Expedients; till he hath, at least, a Glimpse
Swift, Jonathan 279
of Hope, that there will ever be some hearty and
sincere Attempt to put them in Practice.”
In his masterpiece, Gulliver’s Travels (1726),
Swift touches on all his major themes: disgust with
the human body, misanthropy, the satire of mod-
ern learning, human nature, and a criticism of
English policies toward Ireland. Attempting to
conceal his authorship of the work, Swift brought
the manuscript with him on a trip to London, sent
it anonymously to a publisher, and returned to Ire-
land before it was printed. Despite these precau-
tions, the reading public recognized Swift’s hand. It
became his greatest success and inspired an array
of “Gulliveriana,” including verses by Pope and a
poem that Henry Fielding attributed to Gulliver.
The deceptively simple text purports to be a
travel tale by Lemuel Gulliver, who undertakes four
fantastic voyages to Lilliput, inhabited by a minia-
ture race of people; Brobdingnag, a land of giants;
the floating island of Laputa; and the country of
the Houyhnhnms, talking horses who rule over the
Yahoos, a degenerated form of humanity. Critics
remain divided about Swift’s ultimate object of
satire. Critic James Clifford identified two inter-
pretations, which he terms “hard” and “soft.”
“Hard” interpreters see Swift as a misanthrope who
condemns humanity, while the “soft” believe that
“Swift’s basic attack is not upon man but upon the
various false ideals which have misled him—ra-
tionalism, inevitable progress, and the essential
goodness of human nature.”
Swift is perhaps the most gifted and complex
satirist in the English language. His rampant mis-
anthropy, misogyny, and revulsion with the human
body make much of his work difficult for more
sensitive readers, but the complexity of his irony,
his use of narrative personae, and his philosophi-
cal ruminations on human nature are superb. His
work is often compared to those of his contempo-
raries Pope and Gay, and his influences include
RA-
BELAIS, CERVANTES, and Lucian. Critic Robert
Mahony remarks, “Toward the end of the twenti-
eth century, Swift remains a presence in Irish cul-
ture more vivid than that of any other from
eighteenth-century Ireland—more vivid, indeed,
than most from any historical period.”
Works by Jonathan Swift
The Basic Writings of Jonathan Swift. Edited by
Claude Rawson. New York: Modern Library, 2002.
The Correspondence of Jonathan Swift. Edited by
Harold Williams. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963.
The Writings of Jonathan Swift. Edited by Robert A.
Greenberg and William B. Piper. New York: W.W.
Norton, 1973.
Works about Jonathan Swift
Kelly, Ann Cline. Jonathan Swift and Popular Culture:
Myth, Media, and the Man. New York: Palgrave,
2002.
Mahony, Robert. Jonathan Swift: The Irish Identity.
New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1995.
Palmeri, Frank, ed. Critical Essays on Jonathan Swift.
New York: G.K. Hall, 1993.
280 Swift, Jonathan
281
T
Takeda Izumo (1691–1756) dramatist
This master of BUNRAKU or ninyo joruri (puppet
plays) was originally a theater promoter, which was
also his father’s profession. A prolific author,
Takeda wrote many plays, including the well-
known Chushingura, sometimes called 47 Ronin.
Variations of this piece, written for the stock pup-
pets of Bunraku, are also performed in KABUKI the-
ater. Izumo’s contributions to Japanese literature
are enduring, and his tomb in Osaka is a modern-
day tourist attraction.
Translator Donald Keene explains that the story
of Chushingura, attributed to Izumo and two other
authors, Miyoshi Shoraku and Namiki Senryu, is
based on a true-crime story from the early 18th cen-
tury. Using a trick typical of writers at the time, the
authors set the play in the distant past to skirt gov-
ernment restrictions on writing about real events.
The lengthy play begins with tension between
samurai over etiquette, but more serious matters
quickly arise. Moranao, a samurai lord, attempts to
instigate an affair with another lord’s wife. The vir-
tuous woman turns him down in a note. Her hus-
band, Enya Hangen, is present when the rejected
man receives the note. Moranao turns his anger
against Hangen, who, offended, attacks him.
Hangen must commit ritual suicide (seppuku) for
this crime, but he tells his samurai: “Yuranosuke, I
leave you this dagger as a memento of me! Avenge
me!” Hangen’s loyal warriors, the 47 Ronin, even-
tually decapitate Moranao.
Chushingura still attracts audiences, and story
variations continue to appear in Japanese drama,
film, and television. Scholar Alan Atkinson com-
ments in a gallery guide to Japanese prints that the
play “has proved as inspirational to Japanese artists
over the years as it has to Japanese theater goers.”
An English Version of a Work by
Takeda Izumo
Chushingura: The Treasury of Loyal Retainers. A Pup-
pet Play by Takeda Izumo, Miyoshi Shoraku and
Namiki Senryu. Translated by Donald Keene. New
York: Columbia University Press, 1971.
A Work about Takeda Izumo
Brandon, James R., ed. Chushingura: Studies in
Kabuki and the Puppet Theatre. Honolulu: Univer-
sity of Hawaii Press, 1982.
Tang Xianzu (T’ang Hsien-tsu, T’ang
Hsien-Tzu)
(1550–1616) dramatist
Tang Xianzu was a minor government official in
the Ming dynasty, but he was also a revered Chi-
nese playwright. His most famous work is The
Peony Pavilion, part of a set of pieces called The Four
Dreams of Linchuan. This drama uses the conven-
tions of zhuanji (chuan-chi;“grand music drama”or
“kun music drama,” also known as kunju opera), a
style typical of the Ming dynasty. The plays of this
era featured music and very complicated plots.
The Peony Pavilion tells the story of a well-to-do
young girl who dies while waiting for the lover who
has appeared to her in dreams. She leaves behind a
painting of herself. The lover, a young scholar, finds
the painting and in turn falls in love with her ghost.
After many difficulties and trials, the young scholar
and the girl, who turns out to be alive after all, are
reunited and live happily ever after.
Tang Xianzu drew on earlier works for his plots
and used known music for his melodies, but he is
recognized as an innovative, original playwright.
Today, certain portions of The Peony Pavilion are
still performed.
An English Version of a Work by Tang Xianzu
The Peony Pavilion by Tang Xianzu (Tang Hsien-Tzu).
Translated by Cyril Birch. Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1980.
Tasso, Torquato (1544–1595) poet,
dramatist
Torquato Tasso was born near Sorrento, south of
Naples, the second child of Bernardo Tasso, a
courtier and poet. At age 10, the younger Tasso
joined his father in Rome, leaving behind his
mother, who died in 1556. In 1560 Tasso enrolled
in the University of Padua to study law but instead
concentrated on poetry. In 1565 he went to Ferrara
to join the service of Cardinal Luigi d’Este and
later of Duke Alfonso de’Este. In 1579, after mak-
ing a scene at the duke’s marriage festivities, Tasso
was confined at the Hospital of St. Anna under
suspicion of madness. He was kept there, comfort-
ably housed and supplied with books and writing
materials, until 1586. He spent the last years of his
life traveling in search of a patron, and died in
Rome.
Tasso published his first work, a
ROMANCE narra-
tive named Rinaldo (1562), when he was only 18.
Rinaldo was a figure from the popular legends of
Charlemagne, which provided the subject matter for
many a song and story. Tasso had studied the classic
EPICs—Homer’s Odyssey and Virgil’s Aeneid—and
he knew ARIOSTO’s Orlando Furioso. These masters,
Tasso felt, had already covered the traditional ground
of battles, heroics, and damsels in distress; for his
own epic, therefore, he turned to the Christian wars
and chose the setting of the First Crusade.
In response to the Reformation taking place in
the north of Europe, begun by Martin
LUTHER, the
Catholic Church launched the Counter-Reforma-
tion. Fearing the Inquisition and the Council of
Trent, which had banned books by many, including
CASTIGLIONE and ERASMUS, Tasso circulated the man-
uscript of his epic among friends and asked their
advice. Tasso’s anxieties over the work are probably
what led to his nervous collapse. Jerusalem Revisited
appeared in print in 1581 to widespread acclaim.
The Council of Trent found nothing unorthodox in
the book, but Tasso was never completely satisfied
with it. A new version, Jerusalem Conquered, ap-
peared in 1593.
Tasso also wrote a tragicomedy called Aminta,
first performed in 1573, and the
TRAGEDY
King Tor-
rismondo (1587), as well as a collection of 28 dia-
logues, most while residing at St. Anna.
Tasso’s Dialogues borrows a great deal from
Plato and reveals his interest in philosophy, which
he studied while at Padua. Aminta, which shows the
influence of the Poetics of Aristotle, contributes to
the genre of the PASTORAL play that developed in the
courts of Italy during the 16th century. The pastoral
drama used rustic settings and drew a simple, ro-
mantic picture of country life. In Tasso’s play, Sybil
is a pretty nymph and Aminta, the shepherd, falls
madly in love with her. The play ends happily, un-
like King Torrismondo, a classic tragedy. Tasso’s later
long poem On the Creation of the World (1592) has
been considered artistically arid and is an example
used by critics when they suggest that the quality
of Tasso’s poetic output is uneven.
282 Tasso, Torquato
Composed in 20 chapters or cantos and
arranged in rhymed stanzas, Jerusalem Revisited is
an epic romance in the tradition of Ariosto but
calls itself a true history. Though in the heroic
style, its tone is one of lyric melancholy. The story
focuses on the knightly crusader Godfrey and the
hero Rinaldo, who comes to help Godfrey besiege
Jerusalem. The subplots follow three heroines,
Clorinda, Armida, and Ermina, and their adven-
tures in love. Scholar Ralph Nash praises the poem
for its “genuine zest for the sheer drama of his-
tory in the making,” as in this passage where the
Christian hosts make ready their final assault on
the city:
The one and the other army seems to be a lofty
forest thick with trees, with so many spears
each one abounds. The bows are drawn, the
lances are set in rest, the darts are waving and
every sling is whirling; every war-horse too is
ready for battle . . . he stamps, he paws, he
curvets and neighs, he flares his nostrils and
breathes forth smoke and flame.
Like the cousins in the legends of Charlemagne,
Tasso, who championed Rinaldo, felt a lifelong ri-
valry with Ariosto’s Orlando. Alexander POPE,
VOLTAIRE, ROUSSEAU, and Lord Byron would all
count themselves among Tasso’s admirers. He in-
spired Edmund Spenser and
MILTON to take up the
tradition of the epic romance, and several other
poems, operas, and the drama Tasso by GOETHE are
based on his work.
English Versions of Works by Torquato Tasso
Jerusalem Delivered. Edited by Anthony M. Esolen. Bal-
timore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000.
King Torrismondo by Torquato Tasso. Translated by
Maria Pastore Passaro. New York: Fordham Uni-
versity Press, 1997.
A Work about Torquato Tasso
Finucci,Valeria. Renaissance Transactions: Ariosto and
Tasso. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1999.
Taylor, Edward (1642–1729) theologian, poet
Edward Taylor was born into a farming family in
rural England. He received his early education in
England and for a time worked as a teacher. How-
ever, as Donald E. Stanford points out, his Puri-
tan convictions ultimately made it impossible for
him to obtain the license needed to “preach, teach,
or attend the universities of Cambridge or Ox-
ford.” In 1688 he sailed to New England, where, at
age 29, he entered Harvard College. Thereafter, he
served as a minister in Westfield, Connecticut
(now a part of Massachusetts), married twice, and
had 14 children.
Taylor wrote thousands of lines of poetry,
only a few of which were published during his
lifetime. It was not until the 1930s, when a man-
uscript containing almost 400 pages of verse was
discovered, that the minister’s significance to
American literature became clear. Samuel Eliot
Morison notes that in poems like “Huswifery,”
Taylor draws “similes from the humble occupa-
tions” of “spinning and weaving” as a way of
imaginatively exploring the relationship between
God and humans. His most sophisticated poems
are contained in a collection titled Preparatory
Meditations. Taylor used these poetic medita-
tions (at least 217 of which have survived) to pre-
pare his heart and soul for the sacred act of
administering the Lord’s Supper. These devo-
tional poems grant insight into the way in which
the early American literary imagination emerged
out of Puritan theological beliefs and practices.
Norman Grabo notes that the recovery of Tay-
lor’s poetry challenged the earlier tendency to
“ignore the artistic side of colonial literature for
its more attractive intellectual sister” and re-
vealed the “influence of a vital emotional tradi-
tion on the thought and expression of American
Puritans.”
Works by Edward Taylor
The Poems of Edward Taylor. Edited by Donald E.
Stanford. Chapel Hill: University of North Car-
olina Press, 1994.
Taylor, Edward 283
Works about Edward Taylor
Gatta, John. Gracious Laughter: The Meditative Wit of
Edward Taylor. Columbia: University of Missouri
Press, 1989.
Hammond, Jeffrey A. Edward Taylor: Fifty Years of
Scholarship and Criticism. Rochester, N.Y.: Boydell
and Brewer, 1993.
Schuldiner, Michael. Studies in Puritan American
Spirituality: Essays on Anne Bradstreet, Edward
Taylor, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Catharine Maria
Sedgwick, vol. 7. Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen
Press, 2001.
Tench, Watkin (ca. 1758–1833) travel writer,
historiographer
Watkin Tench was born in England, but spent
part of his childhood in France. In 1778 he was
commissioned a lieutenant in the Royal Marines
and fought against the rebels in the American
War of Independence until taken prisoner in
Maryland. A captain by 1786, he volunteered for
guard duties on the first ships transporting con-
victs to Australia. The “First Fleet” arrived at
Botany Bay on January 20, 1788. Tench remained
behind to guard the convict settlers. One year
later, he published in London A Narrative of the
Expedition to Botany Bay, an account of the ardu-
ous sea voyage.
In 1791 Tench led an expedition into the unex-
plored areas north and west of present-day Sydney,
accompanied by Governor Philip, of the principal
settlement at Port Jackson. He returned to England
later that same year, and in 1793 published A Com-
plete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson. This
work describes the physical environment of the
new colony, the struggles of the convict settlers,
and relations with the local aborigines. The Com-
plete Account proved a popular sourcebook on
Australia and was translated into several European
languages during Tench’s lifetime.
Serving again in the Royal Marines, Tench was
taken prisoner by French forces in 1794, and
remained in captivity for six months. In 1796 he
published an account of this experience, Letters
Written in France to a Friend in London. He retired
from the marines in 1821 with the rank of lieu-
tenant-general and died in Devonshire.
Tench’s writings are noteworthy for their con-
vivial tone and humility. According to the historian
Tim Flannery, “Tench was a great wit, always ready
to enjoy a joke at his own expense.” He was also a
thoughtful and humane man who was fascinated
by the customs and language of the aborigines and
treated them as equals, as illustrated by this passage
from the Complete Account: “Soon after they [abo-
rigine guides] bade us adieu, in unabated friend-
ship and good humour . . . and we shook them by
the hand, which they returned lustily.” In a sense, it
is appropriate that the birth of Australia became,
in Tench’s writings, the occasion for the birth of
Australian literature.
Works by Watkin Tench
1788: Comprising ’A Narrative of the Expedition to
Botany Bay’ and ’A Complete Account of the Settle-
ment at Port Jackson’. Melbourne: Text Publishing,
1996.
Letters from Revolutionary France. Edited by Gavin
Edwards. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2001.
The Explorers: Stories of Discovery and Adventure from
the Australian Frontier. Edited by Tim Flannery.
New York: Grove Press, 2000.
Teresa of Avila, St. (1515–1582)
autobiographer, theologian
Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada was born in the Span-
ish city of Ávila, the third child of Alonso Sánchez
de Cepeda and his second wife, Beatriz de Ahumada
y Tapia. Both were of the nobility. As a child, Teresa
loved novels of chivalry. Teresa’s mother died in
1528, and in 1531 Teresa’s father sent her to stay in
a convent, where she fell ill. She was sent to stay with
her uncle to speed her recovery.
At the time, Spaniards such as Ignatius of
LOY-
OLA were beginning to launch a Counter-Reforma-
tion against the activities of Martin
LUTHER and
284 Tench, Watkin
John CALVIN, while Spanish missionaries labored to
convert Native Americans to Christianity. Reli-
gious fervor was in the air. Reading St. Jerome’s let-
ters, Teresa began to fear purgatory and hell.
Against her father’s wishes, she reentered convent
life and in 1536 became a Carmelite nun under the
name Teresa de Jesús.
Her illness, however, returned. She suffered se-
vere pain, vomiting, and even partial paralysis.
During her slow recovery, she became more spir-
itual. She began to have visions and noticed the
ways in which the convent, with its relaxed rules,
had become worldly. In 1562 Teresa received per-
mission to found the first Discalced Carmelite
convent, which would observe a stricter rule. She
went on to travel across Spain, founding more
than a dozen convents and contributing to the es-
tablishment of two dozen more. She mentored
younger individuals, including St.
JOHN OF THE
CROSS
, and impressed almost everyone with her
piety and inner drive. She died while visiting the
duchess of Alba.
Teresa’s literary works include the Book of Her
Life, an autobiography begun in 1562 and finished
in 1565; The Way of Perfection (1562), which taught
nuns the best way to pray; Spiritual Relations
(1563–79), a continuation of the Life’s description
of her mystic experiences; Book of the Foundations
(1573–82), descriptions of her work establishing
convents; and The Interior Castle (1577), which de-
scribes the soul as a castle with seven concentric
mansions or levels of spirituality. She also com-
posed 31 poems and more than 450 letters.
Writing in the Castilian literary language that
King Alfonso X had established centuries before,
she impressed readers with vivid images that
helped them to understand religious experiences.
Helmut Hatzfeld notes that her works display not
only “originality [and] spontaneity” but also “ped-
agogical skill in the expression of concepts usually
considered ineffable.”
Along with The Interior Castle, Teresa’s most ad-
mired work is her Life. In a famous passage, she de-
scribes a vision she had in 1559 of a cherubim:
. . . not tall, but short, and very beautiful, his face
so aflame that he appeared to be one of the high-
est types of angel....In his hands I saw a long
golden spear and at the end of the iron tip I
seemed to see a point of fire. With this he seemed
to pierce my heart several times so that it pene-
trated to my entrails. When he drew it out, I
thought he was drawing them out with it and he
left me completely afire with a great love for God.
In another well-known section of the Life, Teresa
compares four kinds of prayer to the four ways in
which one can water a garden: pulling the water up
by hand, turning a waterwheel, using a flowing
stream or river, and receiving rain. Each successive
stage involves less labor on the part of the gar-
dener. If one achieves the final stage, in which
prayer comes as easily as rain sent to water the dry
soul, “there is no feeling, but only rejoicing, unac-
companied by any understanding of the thing in
which the soul is rejoicing.”
The Catholic Church made Teresa a saint in
1622. Luis de
GÓNGORA Y ARGOTE paid her literary
tribute, and
LOPE DE VEGA wrote two plays about
her. She eventually became co-patron saint of
Spain. Francisco de
QUEVEDO later argued that she
was too feminine to hold this honor. The Catholic
Church and most of its members disagreed with
him, however. In 1970 St. Teresa became the first
woman honored as a Doctor of the Church. Her
works remain widely read.
English Versions of Works by
St. Teresa of Avila
The Complete Poetry of St. Teresa de Avila: A Bilingual
Edition. Translated by Eric W. Vogt. New Orleans:
University Press of the South, 1996.
The Complete Works of Saint Teresa of Jesus, 3 vols.
London: Sheed and Ward, 1944–46.
The Letters of St. Teresa of Jesús, 2 vols. Translated and
edited by E. Allison Peers. London: Burns, Oates
and Washbourne, 1951.
The Life of Saint Teresa of Avila by Herself. Translated
by J. M. Cohen. London: Penguin, 1987.
Teresa of Avila, St. 285
Works about St. Teresa of Avila
Hoornaert, R. Saint Teresa in Writings. London: Trend
and Co., 1931.
Lincoln, Victoria. Teresa: A Woman, A Biography of
Teresa of Avila. Albany: State University of New
York Press, 1984.
Medwick, Cathleen. Teresa of Avila: The Progress of a
Soul. New York: Knopf, 2000.
Peers, E. Allison. Handbook to the Life and Times of
St. Teresa and St. John of the Cross. Westminster,
Md.: Newman Press, 1954.
Thomas à Kempis (1380–1471) theologian
Thomas Hammerken was born in Kempin, near
Cologne, Germany, which accounts for the sur-
name by which he is known (à Kempis is Latin for
“from Kempis”). At age 12 he was sent to Deventer,
in the Netherlands, to join the Brethren of the
Common Life. Co-founded by Gerard Groote
(1340–84) and Florentius Radewyn (1350–1400),
this community strove to live simply and in har-
mony under the rule set up by Augustine. Later
Thomas went to Mount St. Agnes to join his
brother John. He was ordained a priest at age 33
and remained at St. Agnes for the rest of his life.
Kempis trained as a copyist of manuscripts,
which exposed him to the works of the greatest
thinkers of pagan and Christian antiquity, not just
Augustine, Bernard of Clairvaux, Francis of Assisi,
Thomas Aquinas, and Gregory the Great, but also
Aristotle, Ovid,and Seneca. The Brethren habitu-
ally kept notes on what they read, and Thomas
used these records to inform and arrange The Imi-
tation of Christ, now considered a devotional mas-
terpiece for the Christian faith.
Begun in 1420 and first circulated in 1429, The
Imitation of Christ has four parts. The first exam-
ines the spiritual life, the second contemplates the
interior life, the third looks at finding consolation
within, and the fourth reflects on the sacrament of
the altar. Kempis’s themes stress the humanity of
Christ, knowledge of self, the practice of virtue, and
the reading of scripture as a form of meditation.
The Imitation of Christ is often considered a
companion piece to the Christian Bible. Since its
first translation into English in 1503, it has never
been out of print. Perhaps it appeals because its
ideals are so modest. Humility and simplicity are
its foundation, and the author, feeling no need
for fame or fortune, celebrates the simple life.
Kempis speaks to the human need to know God,
and in the tradition of the medieval mystics, he
seeks guidance from the soul within, suggesting
that the spark of the divine is contained within
us all.
An English Version of a Work by
Thomas à Kempis
The Imitation of Christ in Four Books: A Translation
from the Latin. Translated by Joseph N. Tylenda.
New York: Vintage Books, 1998.
A Work about Thomas à Kempis
Montmorency,J.E.G.de.Thomas à Kempis: His Age
and Book. New York: Kennikat Press, 1970.
Till Eulenspiegel (1519)
Till Eulenspiegel is a collection of folktales about a
German peasant named Till Eulenspiegel who
lived around 1300. “Eulenspiegel” was a German
surname at the time, but the literal translation of
the word is “owl-mirror.” As owls are often a sym-
bol of wisdom, it has been suggested that the char-
acter and tales in Till Eulenspiegel acted as a kind of
“wise mirror” held up to society to point out fool-
ishness. However, in medieval times, the owl also
was viewed as the “devil’s bird,” representing stu-
pidity or evil, which makes it an appropriate sym-
bol for the character Till’s nasty antics. Till is a
typical trickster, one whose pranks poke fun at or
teach lessons to the rich, mean, or pompous. Trick-
sters in other world literatures include Anansi the
286 Thomas à Kempis