"...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.

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Monday, June 7, 2010

Rasula on Henry Corbin & Jack Spicer

In this 1977 essay Jed Rasula draws on Corbin to help explicate Jack Spicer's poetics. In particular, he discusses the idea of symbol as symballein, the Imago Templi and the Stranger. See "Spicer's Orpheus and the Emancipation of Pronouns" by Jed Rasula, in boundary 2, Vol. 6, No. 1, Jack Spicer (Autumn, 1977), pp. 51-102.

Also see this earlier post on Charles Olson in Rasula's new book.

Rasula on Spicer - 1977
Posted by Tom Cheetham at 12:01 AM

1 comment:

  1. Norman FinkelsteinJune 8, 2010 at 3:09 PM

    Wow. I read that article when it first came out, so I guess I can be excused for not remembering that Rasula mentions Corbin. Then again, I had never heard of Corbin back then.

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