Jones Very (1813-1880)

Text by Jones Very

   "To the Canary Bird" 

1. "Jones Very." Authors and Texts. American Transcendentalism Web. 17 June 2007

< http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/very/ >.

The purpose of the website is to host a university's graduated students paper submissions, papers that focus on the elements of the Transcendentalsim period. Information provided by the website are from various authors, either students, teachers, or researchers, who submit papers and notes, along with sources, which go through selection before actual postings on the website.

Jones Very was born in Salem, Massachusettes and attended Harvaard University, graduating second in his class. He was a sonneteer, mystic, and Transcendentalist, having written also essays. Very was considered insane and was admitted into a mental hospital, only to be released a month later as he was found harmless. What brought his sanity into question in the first place was Very's complete submission to the divinity of God. Very considered himself a rebirth of "Christ as a witness unto you and all that he comes not by water only but by blood," as we learn from a quote in the introduction of "Jones Very: Selected Poems" written by Nathan Lyons. His poems, essays and Very himself are deemed transcendental because they fit into the transcendental vision of self and of the universe, which is not of realism but of a divine world. Very's vision of the self would be of nothigness and instead a vessel of God's will.

The website was helpful because it provided a biographical essay as well as links to the selelcted author's works (poems). Having acces to the poems and being able to read them, helped in finding the appropriate literary theme and literary term to apply. -D. Remeliik