Selected Writings (Penguin Classics) [Mass Market Paperback]

Meister Eckhart (Author), Oliver Davies (Translator, Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 27, 2004

Composed during a critical time in the evolution of European intellectual life, the works of Meister Eckhart (c. 1260-1327) are some of the most powerful medieval attempts to achieve a synthesis between ancient Greek thought and the Christian faith. Writing with great rhetorical brilliance, Eckhart combines the neoplatonic concept of oneness - the idea that the ultimate principle of the universe is single and undivided - with his Christian belief in the Trinity, and considers the struggle to describe a perfect God through the imperfect medium of language. Fusing philosophy and religion with vivid originality and metaphysical passion, these works have intrigued and inspired philosophers and theologians from Hegel to Heidegger and beyond.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: German

About the Author

Johannes Eckart, more commonly known as Meister Eckhart, was born near Gotha in eastern Germany in around 1260. He had an illustrious career in the Dominican Order, holding senior ecclesiastical and teaching posts all over Europe including Saxony, Bohemia, Paris, Strasburg and Cologne. Eckhart is one of the great speculative mystics of Western Europe, who sought to reconcile traditional Christian belief with the transcendental metaphysics of Neoplatonism. Although accused of heretical teaching during his own liftime, Eckhart is widely regarded today not only as fundamentally orthodox but also as a foremost exponent of Christian mysticism and Christian philosophical theology. He died in the winter of 1326/7 in Avignon.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Books (July 27, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140433430
• ISBN-13: 978-0140433432
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #119,018 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #92 in Books > Education & Reference > Foreign Language Nonfiction > German

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

94 of 96 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best single volume I have seen, June 12, 2001

By 

Timothy Dougal (Joliet, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Selected Writings (Penguin Classics) (Mass Market Paperback)

There are a lot of Meister Eckart books around, but this is the best I have seen. The introduction is especially illuminating. Oliver Davies dispenses with scholastic writings and materials related to the heresy charges, focusing, chronologically, on instructional works and sermons. The Meister Eckhart that emerges from these pages is one who, while taking good works and devotional practices for granted, is so immersed in the Christianized, Neo-Platonic inner life, that he appears, at times, totally unorthodox, at other times, wholly traditional. Reading him is a mind altering experience not to be missed. The translations are very good, and puzzling passages are annotated. References to ancient authors are likewise noted. As a side issue, several of the sermons contain glimpses of medieval scientific theory.

38 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fairly good selection of Eckhart's works, October 13, 2006

By 

Greg (Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Selected Writings (Penguin Classics) (Mass Market Paperback)

This edition of Meister Eckhart capitalises on the strengths of Penguin books; slim volumes which are fairly inexpensive and contain reasonably good scholarly introductions and notes. This edition contains the German Dominican mystic's German sermons, including several ones which deal with key Eckhartian themes, such as the distinction between 'God' and the 'Godhead', the birth of the Word in the soul, and others.

While not as good as the Paulist Press editions of Eckhart's works, this version serves as a very useful introduction to this great mystic's thoughts and sermons.

31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Love essentially resides in the will alone, so that whoever has more will, has more of love.", July 5, 2008

By 

frumiousb "frumiousb" (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Selected Writings (Penguin Classics) (Mass Market Paperback)

I have not read anything by Eckhart before I read this selection by Oliver Davies for Penguin. I have since read by many that the Paulist Press collections are considered to be a better grouping. This does not surprise me, the primary purpose of the Penguins being a good introduction for the many people rather than designed to appeal to the scholar or expert. I found it a good first encounter, and there does not seem to be any criticism that the Davies is either misleading in what it collects or poor in terms of translation.

This edition is broken into five main sections: The Talks of Instruction, The Book of Divine Consolation, On the Noble Man, Selected German Sermons, and Selected Latin Sermons. It also is published with an introduction by Davies to the major themes in Eckhart's thought, a note on selection and translation, a select bibliography (which I appreciated, and which seemed very helpful), and a Register of Eckhart's German sermons. The notes to the main text are included at the end of the book. I continue to wish to see notes in situ rather than at the end but I am apparently in the minority with this view.

As a lay reader (by which I mean that I am neither religious scholar nor historian) I was reading the book for my own enlightenment and edification. I was most struck by Eckhart's ideas of the relationship between the soul and God, his view of time and timelessness, and the quiet repetition of the notion that a relationship to the Good comes from within rather than without. He rejects the importance of forms of worship and insists on an interior acceptance of self-love as a necessary precondition to the love of God and others. As callow as it seems to say, I found the book helpful. It kept me reading and thinking and I often experienced it as personally very moving. I particularly engaged with the selections from The Book of Divine Consolation.

I would recommend both Eckhart in general and this edition in particular. I may myself circle back at some point to pick up the more complete editions. But this should be seen as credit to Penguin in providing the sufficient introductory experience rather than an expression of lack.