The Legacy of Henry Corbin: Additions to the Bibliography

"...the Imagination (or love, or sympathy, or any other sentiment) induces knowledge, and knowledge of an 'object' which is proper to it..."

Henry Corbin (1903-1978) was a scholar, philosopher and theologian. He was a champion of the transformative power of the Imagination and of the transcendent reality of the individual in a world threatened by totalitarianisms of all kinds. One of the 20th century’s most prolific scholars of Islamic mysticism, Corbin was Professor of Islam & Islamic Philosophy at the Sorbonne in Paris and at the University of Teheran. He was a major figure at the Eranos Conferences in Switzerland. He introduced the concept of the mundus imaginalis into contemporary thought. His work has provided a foundation for archetypal psychology as developed by James Hillman and influenced countless poets and artists worldwide. But Corbin’s central project was to provide a framework for understanding the unity of the religions of the Book: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. His great work Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn ‘Arabi is a classic initiatory text of visionary spirituality that transcends the tragic divisions among the three great monotheisms. Corbin’s life was devoted to the struggle to free the religious imagination from fundamentalisms of every kind. His work marks a watershed in our understanding of the religions of the West and makes a profound contribution to the study of the place of the imagination in human life.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Additions to the Bibliography

1. Corbin's translations of Heidegger in the 1930's include "Hölderlin and the Essence of Poetry" which appeared as «Hölderlin et l’essence de la poésie», trad. de l’allemand par H. Corbin, Mesures 3, 15 juill. 1937, pp. 120-143. This was reprinted in 1962 as Heidegger, Martin. Approche de Hölderlin. Translated by Henry Corbin et al. Paris: Gallimard, 1962.

2. Landolt, Hermann. “Henry Corbin’s Understanding of Mulla Sadra.” In Mulla Sadra and Transcendent Philosophy (Islam-West Philosophical Dialogue: The Papers Presented at the World Congress on Mulla Sadra, May, 1999, Tehran), 1: 163-72. Tehran: SIPRIn, 2001; reprinted in idem, Recherches en spiritualité iranienne, 357-64.

Folio of calligraphy 16th century Mir 'Ali, d. 1556 Safavid or Mughal periods, Iran.