Background
Arthur Owen Barfield was born on 9 November 1898 at 6 Grosvenor Gardens, Muswell Hill, Middlesex, the youngest of the four children of Arthur Edward Barfield, a solicitor, and his wife, Elizabeth, née Shoults.
(For more than three-quarters of a century, Owen Barfield ...)
For more than three-quarters of a century, Owen Barfield produced original and thought-provoking works that made him a legendary cult figure. History in English Words is his classic excursion into history through the English language. This popular book provides a brief, brilliant history of the various peoples who have spoken the Indo-European tongues. It is illustrated throughout by current English words whose derivation from other languages, and whose history in use and changes of meaning, record and unlock the larger history. "In our language alone, not to speak of its many companions, the past history of humanity is spread out in an imperishable map, just as the history of the mineral earth lies embedded in the layers of its outer crust.... Language has preserved for us the inner, living history of our soul. It reveals the evolution of consciousness" -Owen Barfield
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1926
('What Coleridge Thought' presents Coleridge's ideas in a ...)
'What Coleridge Thought' presents Coleridge's ideas in a coherent form, carefully organized to demonstrate precisely what his thoughts were and how his writings develop them. Coleridge's objective was to stimulate his readers into thinking for themselves - "to excite the germinal power that craves no knowledge but what it can take up into itself" (S. T. Coleridge). Barfield guides the reader towards this. Here will be found the heart of Coleridge's thinking.
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1971
('The Rediscovery of Meaning' is a collection of essays ab...)
'The Rediscovery of Meaning' is a collection of essays about language, imagination, the human being, society and God. In each, Barfield points to solutions to the modern-day experience of meaningless fragmentation. This book includes some of Barfield's most brilliant, most readable, and most profound pieces. Among them are 'Poetic Diction and Legal Fiction', 'The Harp and the Camera', 'Matter, Imagination and Spirit', and 'Philology and the Incarnation'.
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1977
('History, Guilt and Habit' is a collection of essays, bas...)
'History, Guilt and Habit' is a collection of essays, based on lectures given by the author on the West Coast of North America. This brief, accessible book outlines Barfield's primary ideas: the distinction between the history of ideas and the evolution of human consciousness; the nature of morality, and the danger of mental passivity becoming habit. This new edition includes 'Evolution', Barfield's only essay on physical evolution and how it relates to the evolution of consciousness. "You can dig into the earth with a spade in order to get beneath the surface. The spade is itself a product of the earth, but that does not bother you. But if, by some mysterious dispensation, the spade were part of the very path of earth you were splitting up, you would be rather nonplussed, because you would destroy the instrument by using it. And that is the sort of difficulty you are up against when it is not the earth you are digging into, but consciousness; and when it is not a spade you are digging with, but language . . . However quickly you turn around, you can never see the back of your own head."
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1979
(Poetic Diction, first published in 1928, begins by asking...)
Poetic Diction, first published in 1928, begins by asking why we call a given grouping of words “poetry” and why these arouse “aesthetic imagination” and produce pleasure in a receptive reader. Returning always to this personal experience of poetry, Owen Barfield at the same time seeks objective standards of criticism and a theory of poetic diction in broader philosophical considerations on the relation of world and thought. His profound musings explore concerns fundamental to the understanding and appreciation of poetry, including the nature of metaphor, poetic effect, the difference between verse and prose, and the essence of meaning.
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1984
(Owen Barfield was one of the most original and stimulatin...)
Owen Barfield was one of the most original and stimulating thinkers of the twentieth century, the man that C.S. Lewis said could not speak on any subject without illuminating it, the man whose writings have won praise from figures as diverse as T.S. Eliot and Saul Bellow, Walter de la Mare and Howard Nemerov, W.H. Auden and Marshall McLuhan. This comprehensive overview supplements major selections with numerous short supporting passages form the whole corpus of his writings and provides a short glossary of Barfieldian terms and useful primary and secondary bibliographies.
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1990
critic lawyer philosopher author poet
Arthur Owen Barfield was born on 9 November 1898 at 6 Grosvenor Gardens, Muswell Hill, Middlesex, the youngest of the four children of Arthur Edward Barfield, a solicitor, and his wife, Elizabeth, née Shoults.
Barfield was educated at Highgate School and Wadham College, Oxford and in 1920 received a first class degree in English language and literature.
Before attending Oxford, Barfield served in the British Army’s Royal Engineers during World War I. While at Oxford, Barfield began his studies on the influence of words and the effects they had when combined. One of his early works, Poetic Diction: A Study in Meaning, discusses the evolution of language.
In 1934 he joined his father’s law firm, where he practised until 1965.
After his retirement from the legal profession, he was a visiting professor at several colleges and universities, including the State University of New York at Stony Brook and Brandeis University. Barfield also contributed to journals and anthologies, and wrote numerous books, some under the pseudonym of G. A. L. Burgeon.
(Poetic Diction, first published in 1928, begins by asking...)
1984('What Coleridge Thought' presents Coleridge's ideas in a ...)
1971(For more than three-quarters of a century, Owen Barfield ...)
1926('History, Guilt and Habit' is a collection of essays, bas...)
1979('The Rediscovery of Meaning' is a collection of essays ab...)
1977(Owen Barfield was one of the most original and stimulatin...)
1990Barfield became an anthroposophist after attending a lecture by Rudolf Steiner in 1924. He studied the work and philosophy of Rudolf Steiner throughout his life and translated some of his works, and had some early essays published in anthroposophical publications. Barfield's primary focus was on what he called the "evolution of consciousness," which is an idea which occurs frequently in his writings.
Owen Barfield was a small, lithe man, an enthusiastic walker, fond of cats.
In 1923 Barfield married Matilda ("Maud") Dewey, a professional dancer and producer who had worked with Gordon Craig. They had two children, Alexander and Lucy; and fostered Geoffrey.