The Vaughan Association began in the wake of a successful first Colloquium held in 1995 to mark the tercentenary of Henry Vaughan’s death on 23 April 1695. Organised and guided by Peter Thomas and Anne Cluysenaar, the Colloquium has gone on as an annual event where critical scholarship and creative writing meet and converse, exploring the work and related themes of Henry Vaughan and his priest-alchemist brother Thomas (1621-66). These seventeenth-century identical twins were shaped by their Breconshire birthplace, its hills and groves, creatures, herbs, stones, history and myths, the magical landscape of the Usk river valley that imprinted itself so firmly upon their work and imaginations. Like their childhood home and landscape, the Vaughan brothers’ experience of the civil wars, regicide and republican revolution, equally shaped their lives and perspectives. Both brothers fought in that war and experienced the loss of institutions of both church and state that resulted. The discontinuity and alienation that followed were traumatic. Defeated, the twins reinvented themselves, Henry as ‘Silurist’ and Thomas as ‘Eugenius Philalethes’. Their writings reveal the connections between identity, adversity and the creative process.
Announcement of the dates for the 25th Colloquium
We are happy to announce that the dates for the 25th Annual Colloquium are the 24th-26th of April 2020. The …
Scintilla acceptances will be ready soon
Attention poets: the edits are expecting to finalise poetry selections for Scintilla 23 in early January. Announcements should follow soon …
Scintilla 22 available now
Scintilla 22 is available on Amazon now. This series of wonderful articles includes Jonathan Post examining Henry Vaughan’s poems in …
Call for Papers: Essay Collection on Louise Imogen Guiney
The Vaughan Association announces plans to publish a centenary collection of literary and historical essays to honour the poet, essayist, …