Thomas a Kempis

The Imitation of Christ, A Poetic Paraphrase Thomas a Kempis

In 1392, the 12-year-old Thomas à Kempis followed his brother, Johann, to Deventer in the Netherlands in order to attend the noted Latin school there. After leaving school, Thomas went to Zwolle to visit his brother, who had become the prior of the refounded Monastery (Mount St. Agnes) that had been established there. Thomas entered the order in 1406, becoming a prolific copyist and writer. He received Holy Orders in 1413 and was made sub-prior of the monastery in 1429. It is likely that The Imitation of Christ was written (in Latin) as a kind of training manual for acclimating new postulants to the ways of the Brethren of the Common Life. The translated text has been in this edition paraphrased into rhymed couplets usually exhibiting four stressed beats per line, with occasional variances manifesting as three lines per stanza, or lines that may scan with fewer or more than four stressed beats. The general purpose of converting the prose into verse is to encourage reading aloud as a way of enhancing guided meditation. Moreover, the style of this paraphrase is aphoristic, in most cases confining the expression of a particular thought to one or two interconnected couplets.