Thomas Traherne’s Theme of Want and the Tradition of Platonic Eros

This paper addresses Thomas Traherne’s notorious theme of ‘want’ as it appears in the Centuries of Meditation - the desire and want of God for human beings and the symmetrical desire and want of human beings for God. For all its rhetorical and poetical flourish, Traherne’s meditations on want are shown to be rooted in the Platonic tradition of eros and have their precursor in Pseudo-Dionysius’ model of mutual yearning between God and humanity. This theme is examined through Traherne’s inheritance of the Neoplatonic structure of procession and return and the Thomistic metaphysics of efficient and final causality. Traherne ultimately urges towards configuring the divine-human relationship in terms of  reciprocity and reciprocal desire.