‘Innocency of Life'

Post-Blakean readings of Traherne set innocence and experience in a dialectical relationship. They highlight the corrupting power of experience, imparted through education, on the pure intuitions of innocence. ² The autobiographical sections of the Centuries of Meditations chart a clear decline through childhood education: ‘The first Light which shined in my Infancy in its Primitive and Innocent Clarity was totaly Ecclypsed … by the Customs and maners of Men.’ ³ At the same time, Traherne celebrates the original intuited knowledge ‘Collected again by the Highest Reason’, which includes the study of divinity and humanity. ⁴ This use of the scholastic terms, ‘high’ or ‘right reason’, places the recovery of innocence through learning within a holistic epistemological framework that combines natural philosophy with theology.