ABSTRACT
Innocence is an inchoate term, but it is also a rich and compelling means of expressing human perfection. The rich history of innocence in Christian thought is easily obscured by modern theoretical frameworks, such as Enlightenment ideas of the state of nature, the Romantic ideal of the child or psychological theories of paradisal archetypes. This book traces a path into the multifaceted innocence of Christian thought through the Anglican divine, Thomas Traherne (c.1637–74). Traherne has been closely associated with innocence through his meditations and his poetry on childhood. He stands at a crucial point in the history of innocence, since his work looks forward to the Enlightenment praise of nature and the Romantic ideal of the child and backwards to the Church Fathers and the Latin roots of Christian innocence. The current renaissance in Traherne studies, which arose out of the discovery of new manuscripts, has highlighted the need for further work to review this theme and its significance in his thought. 1
