June 4, 2001

eremite

I recently received a question from a colleague of my wife's asking about the word eremite. I believe that the word means 'religious recluse'. The question arose because Robert Frost made reference to Keats's eremite in one of his poems. Could you help us to understand the word and who may have been Keats's eremite?

An eremite (pronounced ERR-uh-mite) is indeed a 'religious recluse', someone who, from religious motives, has retired into a solitary life. Both eremite and hermit came into English late in the 12th century and were used interchangeably for over 400 years. Hermit is now the more common word. In Modern English, especially since the 16th century, eremite is most often used poetically or to create a certain effect. Time magazine referred to J.D. Salinger as "the eremite of Cornish, N.H." in a 1999 article.

The Greek adjective eremos means 'empty or desolate'. From this came the noun eremia 'desert'. Toward the end of the 3rd century, it became common for Christians in Egypt to go into the desert, where they lived a solitary life of contemplation and asceticism. A person who did this was known as an eremites in Greek or an eremita in Latin. An eremite is, therefore, literally 'someone who lives alone in the desert'.

Among the more famous of these early recluses was St. Anthony, who is regarded as the founder of Christian monasticism, and who is said to have withstood numerous temptations from the devil during his 20 years of rigorous solitude. St. Jerome, who made the first translation of the Bible from Hebrew into Latin, also spent a number of years as an eremite. The eremitic life was especially popular during the centuries which saw the demise of the Roman Empire. After the Counterreformation, the practice largely died out in the Western Church but remains in the Eastern Church.

In the poem "Bright Star," Keats speaks of "nature's patient sleepless Eremite." The reference is to an unidentified star which, like a hermit, sits apart from the world. Frost, in "Choose Something Like a Star," refers to the steadfastness of "Keats' Eremite." I'll leave it to those of you who are interested to look up the full texts of the poems. They can be easily found on the Internet.

Here are a few more words to expand your vocabulary: "eremic" means 'relating to deserts'; "eremophilia" is 'a love of solitude'; and "eremophobia" is 'a fear of being alone'.

Georgia