From the book
Centuries of Meditations
Thomas Traherne · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordInfancy denotes the earliest stage of life.
- In TraherneThe third Century opens by proposing infancy as evidence.
- In this editionInfancy in these passages is Traherne’s retrospective category.
- A place to beginEarly apprehensions are the continuing light for seeing the universe.
Meaning
Infancy denotes the earliest stage of life. Traherne also makes it a name for the beginnings of a greatness that later reflection must recover.
Use in the book
The third Century opens by proposing infancy as evidence. Its apprehensions are called pure and virgin, given rather than purchased or derived from books. Their importance is not simply that they precede error: they supply the light by which the world can still be rightly understood. Remembering them becomes a present gift.
The poem in III.4 complicates any picture of uninterrupted childhood bliss. Divine approaches meet cold acceptance, and the adult confesses a long failure to understand their end. Infancy is therefore neither a sufficient education nor a closed paradise to which maturity can literally return. Its remembered disclosure must become an intelligible and sustained enjoyment.
Places to read
In this edition
Infancy in these passages is Traherne’s retrospective category. His interpretation of childhood should be distinguished from the child’s unreflective experience.