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Media Kit
During the last three years of his life Frithjof Schuon wrote approximately 3,500 poems in his mother tongue German. These poems express every conceivable subtlety of spiritual and moral counsel, and the same sharpness of intellect, profundity, comprehensiveness, and compassion which one finds in Schuon’s other writings. These four volumes, available for the first time in English, represent a substantial portion of Schuon’s poetical work, and will prove irresistible to anyone interested in the poetical expression of the inner spiritual life.
About the Author(s)
Frithjof Schuon
Frithjof Schuon (1907-1998) is best known as the foremost spokesman of the “Traditionalist” or “Perennialist” school and as a philosopher in the metaphysical current of Shankara and Plato. He wrote more than two dozen books on metaphysical, spiritual, artistic, and ethnic themes and was a regular contributor to journals on comparative religion in both Europe and America. Schuon’s writings have been consistently featured and reviewed in a wide range of scholarly and philosophical publications around the world, respected by both scholars and spiritual authorities. Besides his prose writings, Schuon was also a prolific poet and a gifted painter of images that always portrayed the beauty and power of the divine, and the nobility and virtue of primordial humanity.
World Wisdom features a series titled “The Writings of Frithjof Schuon”, which includes many new editions of classic books by Schuon in new translations and with additional materials. Our online Library contains many articles and poems written by Frithjof Schuon, allowing readers to see a representative sample of his remarkable body of work.
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William Stoddart
William Stoddart (June 25, 1925 – November 9, 2023) was a Perennialist author, editor, and translator who was active in advancing the understanding of the writings of Frithjof Schuon, Titus Burckhardt, and others, for over 50 years. Dr. Stoddart's most recent publications with World Wisdom are An Illustrated Outline of Buddhism: The Essentials of Buddhist Spirituality, What Does Islam Mean in Today’s World?, and Outline of Sufism: The Essentials of Islamic Spirituality. A compilation of his writings, Remembering in a World of Forgetting, was edited by M. Soares de Azevedo and A. Vasconcellos Queiroz. Stoddart also edited The Essential Titus Burckhardt, and was perhaps the greatest authority on the work of this great Swiss traditionalist. Dr. Stoddart's other contributions in World Wisdom books include:
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Annemarie Schimmel
Annemarie Schimmel (1922-2003) was one of the leading experts on Islamic literature and mysticism (Sufism) in the world. She wrote more than 80 books and essays, and lectured at universities and conferences around the world. Professor Schimmel translated and conducted research in the major Islamic languages of Arabic, Persian, Urdu, and Turkish. Her book Mystical Dimensions of Islam (1975) is considered a classic in its field. Professor Annemarie Schimmel wrote several pieces that have appeared in World Wisdom books including writings on Frithjof Schuon's poetry.
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Reviews
- The beauty of Schuon’s poetry touches upon that luminous center where the way of knowledge and the path of love converge.
Patrick Laude, Georgetown University and author of Singing the Way: Insights in Poetry and Spiritual Transformation.
- Mystical experience almost inevitably leads to poetry. The great mystics all over the world used the language of poetry when trying to beckon to a mystery that lies beyond normal human experience, and the most glorious works in Eastern and Western religions are the hymns of the mystics, be they Sufis or Christians, Hindus or Zen monks.… We are not surprised that Frithjof Schuon too felt compelled to write poetry.… Here we listen to the thinker who, far from the intricate and complex scholarly sentences of his learned prose works, sings the simple prayers of the longing soul.… These tender lyrics … show the famous thinker in a very different light and from an unexpected side.
Annemarie Schimmel, Professor Emeritus, Harvard University
- Each of these poems is a true compass pointing the reader to Schuon’s fundamental theme: the Remembrance of God. The reader may carry this book for a lifetime and not exhaust its content because its content is the inexhaustibly beautiful life of the Spirit.
Barry McDonald, poet and editor of Seeing God Everywhere: Essays on Nature and the Sacred
- ‘These words are the ladder to Heaven: whosoever climbs it comes to the Roof.’ This appreciation, said originally about Rumi’s Mathnawi, applies equally to the poetical works of Frithjof Schuon (indeed, to his entire body of work), in which Schuon offers his readers many tastes of the varied and far-ranging spiritual insights drawn from the ocean of his wisdom and being.
Mahmoud Bina, Isfahan University of Technology
- The exquisite ‘essences’ that are the poetry of Frithjof Schuon bring about in me an almost instantaneous eruption of music. His sacred loves and longings, with his unique comprehension of Eternal Woman, produce a visionary challenge to an exhausted masculine culture.
Sir John Tavener, author and composer
- What does a sage think about on a daily basis? If one has ever wondered what the content of a sage’s consciousness might be, these poems give the reader a unique insight into such a soul. What strikes us as we peruse poem after poem is the perfect simplicity of soul of a sage, a simplicity that we discover is synonymous with perfect objectivity and perfect sincerity. The reader mindful of the sacred weight of words and thirsting for knowledge of the Real, will find here food for endless hours of meditative thought and beauty to melt the heart.
Mark Perry, author of On Awakening and Remembering
- These poems by Frithjof Schuon, although considered didactic by their author, do not simply repeat the content of his many metaphysical books. Their language is more simple and direct and they transmit to the reader a ‘being’ and ‘spiritual presence’ which are quite powerful, and resonate through these excellent translations from the original German. They also add many more insights and nuances on the writer’s thinking and life which were not present in the previous books.
Jean-Pierre Lafouge, Marquette University
- Frithjof Schuon was a sage, an artist, and a pioneer of interspirituality. He was called the leading light of the Traditionalist/Perennialist School of thought. During the last three years of his life, he wrote 3,500 poems in German, his mother tongue. In these volumes of them, there are autobiographical glimpses of his life, his loves, and his travels. Many allude to the world’s religions; others celebrate the creative spirit in music, dance, and poetry. The poems contain references to philosophy, the questing spirit, and the ancient virtues.
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, SpiritualityandPractice.com and authors of Spiritual Literacy: Reading the Sacred in Everyday Life
