page_title: Jones Very
section_title: Final years and death
hierarchical_section_title: Jones Very / Biography / Final years and death
caption_attribution_description: English: Grave of Transcendentalist Jones Very in Peabody, Massachusetts. (Taken in the rain; I'll try to get a better shot next time I head up to that area)
context_page_description: Jones Very was an American poet, essayist, clergyman, and mystic associated with the American Transcendentalism movement. He was known as a scholar of William Shakespeare and many of his poems were Shakespearean sonnets. He was well-known and respected amongst the Transcendentalists, though he had a mental breakdown early in his career.
  Born in Salem, Massachusetts to two unwed first cousins, Jones Very became associated with Harvard University, first as an undergraduate, then as a student in the Harvard Divinity School and as a tutor of Greek. He heavily studied epic poetry and was invited to lecture on the topic in his home town, which drew the attention of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Soon after, Very asserted that he was the Second Coming of Christ, which resulted in his dismissal from Harvard and his eventual institutionalization in an insane asylum. When he was released, Emerson helped him issue a collection called Essays and Poems in 1839. Very lived the majority of his life as a recluse from then on, issuing poetry only sparingly. He died in 1880.
context_section_description: Jones Very believed his role as a prophet would last only twelve months. By September 1839, his role was complete. Emerson suggested that Very's temporary mental instability was worth the message he had delivered. In his essay "Friendship", Emerson referred to Very:
  I knew a man who under a certain religious frenzy cast off this drapery, and spoke to the conscience of every person he encountered, and that with great insight and beauty. At first, all men agreed he was mad. But persisting, he attained to the advantage of bringing every man of his acquaintance into true relations with him... To stand in true relations with men in a false age is worth a fit of insanity, is it not?
  The last decades of Very's life were spent in Salem as a recluse under the care of his sister. It was during these years that he held roles as a visiting minister in Eastport, Maine and North Beverly, Massachusetts, though these roles were temporary because he had become too shy. By age 45, he had retired. In his last forty years, Very did very little. As biographer Edwin Gittleman wrote, "Although he lived until 1880, Very's effective life was over by the end of 1840." He died on May 8, 1880 and, upon hearing of Very's death, Alcott wrote a brief remembrance on May 16, 1880:
  The newspapers record the death of Jones Very of Salem, Mass. It was my fortune to have known the man while he was tutor in Harvard College and writing his Sonnets and Essays on Shakespeare, which were edited by Emerson, and published in 1839.  Very was then the dreamy mystic of our circle of Transcendentalists, and a subject of speculation by us.  He professed to be taught by the Spirit and to write under its inspiration.  When his papers were submitted to Emerson for criticism the spelling was found faulty and on Emerson's pointing out the defect, he was told that this was by dictation of the Spirit also.  Whether Emerson's witty reply, "that the Spirit should be a better speller," qualified the mystic's vision does not appear otherwise than that the printed volume shows no traces of illiteracy in the text.
  Very often came to see me.  His shadowy aspect at times gave him a ghostly air.  While walking by his side, I remember, he seemed spectral, — and somehow using my feet instead of his own, keeping as near me as he could, and jostling me frequently.  His voice had a certain hollowness, as if echoing mine.  His whole bearing made an impression as if himself were detached from his thought and his body were another's.  He ventured, withal, to warn me of falling into idolatries, while he brought a sonnet or two (since printed) for my benefit.
  
  His temperament was delicate and nervous, disposed to visionariness and a dreamy idealism, stimulated by over-studies and the school of thought then in the ascendant.  His sonnets and Shakespearean essays surpass any that have since appeared in subtlety and simplicity of execution.
caption: Grave of Jones Very in Peabody, Massachusetts
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