Owen Barfield’s Poetry, Drama, and Fiction

Jeffrey Hipolito is the author of Owen Barfield's Poetic Philosophy: Meaning and Imagination (Bloomsbury, 2024), and his work has appeared in The Oxford Handbook of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Journal of the History of Ideas, European Romantic Review, Journal of Inklings Studies, VII: Journal of the Marion E. Wade Center, and Renascence. He currently serves as the chairperson of the Owen Barfield Society. Jeffrey Hipolito has been awarded the Owen Barfield Award for Excellence for 2024.

“Jeffrey Hipolito has produced a meticulous analysis of the creative oeuvre of Owen Barfield, the man known as “the first and last Inkling.” While I was familiar with Barfield’s philosophy, I knew little about his extensive creative output; Hipolito has immersed himself in the literary traditions that shaped Barfield’s creative oeuvre, deftly contextualizing it for his audience.”––Donna L. Potts, Professor and Chair, Department of English, Washington State University—author of Howard Nemerov and Objective Idealism: The Influence of Owen Barfield.“In a style that is at once erudite, eloquent, insightful, and lucid, Owen Barfield’s Poetry, Drama, and Fiction: Rider on Pegasus provides the first comprehensive elucidation of Barfield’s literary and poetic works. Jeffrey Hipolito illustrates how the well-known themes and perspectives of Barfield’s philosophical, linguistic, and critical writings are also central to his imaginative works of fiction, drama, and poetry. Owen Barfield's Poetry, Drama, and Fiction: Rider on Pegasus is an indispensable source for future research on Barfield, which will have to take into account the magnitude and unity of Barfield’s oeuvre as a writer, poet, and philosopher. In short, Hipolito makes it clear that a complete understanding of Barfield the philosopher is only possible when complemented with an understanding of Barfield the poet (and vice versa).” ––Dr Luke Fischer, University of Sydney“What should be appreciated about this book is that it places Barfield in the context of both the English poetic tradition of the nineteenth century and of contemporary and modernist poetry, drama, and prose (most prominently, T. S. Eliot)… [Owen Barfield’s Poetry, Drama, and Fiction] certainly establishes Hipolito as an eminent Barfield scholar who sets the stage for the twenty-first century reception of “the First and Last Inkling.” His philosophical, poetic, contemplative, and mystical thought is indispensable for those who want to go beyond the present spiritual and cultural crisis of the West towards a broader, integrative vision of reality and our place in it.”––Mateusz Stróżyński, Professor at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland “Hipolito has done a great service to studies of Owen Barfield by publishing the first book-length treatment of Barfield's literary works.”––Stephen Thorson, Journal of Inklings Studies, Volume 15, Issue 2

• IntroductionChapter 1: A Figured Zodiac—The Tower Chapter 2: A Maze of Awakening—English PeopleChapter 3: A Life of Sane Despair—Orpheus, Medea, Angels at BayChapter 4: Time Is, Time Was—The Unicorn and Riders on PegasusChapter 5: And I in Me—Night Operation, Eager Spring, The Year Participated