Death Be Not Proud: The Art of Holy Attention

The seventeenth-century French philosopher Nicolas Malebranche thought that philosophy could learn a valuable lesson from prayer, which teaches us how to attend, wait, and be open for what might happen next. Death Be Not Proud explores the precedents of Malebranche’s advice by reading John Donne’s poetic prayers in the context of what David Marno calls the “art of holy attention.” If, in Malebranche’s view, attention is a hidden bond between religion and philosophy, devotional poetry is the...