Merton's Art and Non-Western Thought

As Thomas Merton's literary career progressed his writing increasingly incorporated a knowledge of non-western traditions. His earlier poetry emphasized his satisfaction within the traditions of the western Church, while his later art was nourished by a developing concern with non-western ways of thinking and being as he became concerned with poetic means to suggest an embrace of the immediate. His books The Wisdom of the East and Mystics and Zen Masters explore ground of common interest shared by East and West, and the collection of essays, Zen and the Birds of Appetite, examines further aspects of Merton's concerted thinking about how Christianity and Eastern thought support one another. Interest in South American poets (whose roots Merton considered closer to reality) and a study of, and translation of, the classic Chinese poet, Chuang Tzu, are additional examples of later significant artistic concerns. Other examples of non-western awareness are evident in journals such as Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander and the Asian Journal, as well as in Merton's writings about Gandhi. Later experimental poetry grows out of related concerns and Merton's conviction that writing should reflect the poet's rejoicing “in being for its own sake.” Cables to the Ace is an experimental poem which suggests that the writer and reader should disassociate themselves from the conventionally acceptable. Merton's final book of poems, The Geography of Lograire, expresses his private awareness of the value of cultures other than western European. The Geography of Lograire is often focused on distortions of myth which occur when man assumes that he is superior to other cultures (and myth-dreams) with which he comes into contact. In all of these ways Merton's literary career should be seen as one wherein he moved closer to an appreciation of non-western ways of attaining wisdom.

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