I have found Charles Taylor a fount of wisdom over the years. A contemporary Canadian philosopher, he has that rare gift of making complex ideas easy to grasp in a clear and beautiful English. In his writing the things he talks about stand out of the page as realities because he is deeply connected with thinking as grounded in reality. The French writer Georges Simenon, famous for the Maigret stories, talked of 'les mots-matières', words grounded in day to day realities, the matter of things.
I would recommend his extensive study of the evolution of conceptions of the self in the West, Sources of the Self. Taylor will approach metaphysical and spiritual questions with openmindedness, and certainly won't exclude or dismiss them as so much of modern thought does. It is refreshing.
I have just discovered he has recently published Cosmic Connections: Poetry in the age of disenchantment (2024), which picks up on some of his favourite concerns about the place of poetry and the arts more generally. In this case, he considers how the Romantics attempted to reconnect to the spiritual dimension of life, regain enchantment and find new meaning in life. He also looks at later poets, from Baudelaire to Eliot.
To be found on Blackwells' site:
https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Cosmic-Connections-by-Charles-Taylor/9780674296084
"In seeking deeper understanding and a different orientation to life, the language of poetry is not merely a pleasurable presentation of doctrines already elaborated elsewhere. Rather, Taylor insists, poetry persuades us through the experience of connection. The resulting conviction is very different from that gained through the force of argument. By its very nature, poetry’s reasoning will often be incomplete, tentative, and enigmatic. But at the same time, its insight is too moving—too obviously true—to be ignored."
