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.
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, …
Traherne Festival, 2-4 June 2018
Traherne Festival 2—4 June Credenhill Church, Hereford Cathedral and Almeley Meeting House and Parish Church Authors, poet and artist to …
Scintilla 21 sent to print
Scintilla 21 is now available and will be visible on Amazon within the next 2-3 days. This fine issue …