Kirstie Blair
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199644506
- eISBN:
- 9780191741593
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199644506.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature, Poetry
This chapter discusses how Tractarianism revived debates over formal worship, assessing the ways in which the Oxford Movement leaders, notably Newman, Keble, and Faber, saw form as a means of ...
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This chapter discusses how Tractarianism revived debates over formal worship, assessing the ways in which the Oxford Movement leaders, notably Newman, Keble, and Faber, saw form as a means of containing and channelling religious emotion. It assesses Keble’s widely disseminated poetic theories, particularly as displayed in his lectures as Oxford Professor or Poetry, in this light, and includes a detailed reading in the final section of the chapter of his deployment of form in The Christian Year.Less
This chapter discusses how Tractarianism revived debates over formal worship, assessing the ways in which the Oxford Movement leaders, notably Newman, Keble, and Faber, saw form as a means of containing and channelling religious emotion. It assesses Keble’s widely disseminated poetic theories, particularly as displayed in his lectures as Oxford Professor or Poetry, in this light, and includes a detailed reading in the final section of the chapter of his deployment of form in The Christian Year.
Richard Greene
- Published in print:
- 1993
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198119883
- eISBN:
- 9780191671234
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198119883.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry, 18th-century Literature
Mary Leapor, of all the submerged poets, has been the one most warmly received by scholars and reviewers in the past few years. Accordingly, an examination of her work has implications for the study ...
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Mary Leapor, of all the submerged poets, has been the one most warmly received by scholars and reviewers in the past few years. Accordingly, an examination of her work has implications for the study of eighteenth-century poetry. She may be seen as a test case for poets outside the canon. This book argues that Leapor's poetry reveals a deep intelligence exercised especially upon issues of gender and class. She is accustomed to reading and is conscious of participating within a literary tradition. She is also a religious poet whose treatment of imminent death is at times distinguished. Her poetry achieves a remarkable range of feeling; it is at times a vehicle of comedy, of pathos, or of rage. Although she is not inventive in terms of technique, she brings to poetry a perspective and a tone of voice that are truly individual. In all of this, it is possible to recognize a poet of substance.Less
Mary Leapor, of all the submerged poets, has been the one most warmly received by scholars and reviewers in the past few years. Accordingly, an examination of her work has implications for the study of eighteenth-century poetry. She may be seen as a test case for poets outside the canon. This book argues that Leapor's poetry reveals a deep intelligence exercised especially upon issues of gender and class. She is accustomed to reading and is conscious of participating within a literary tradition. She is also a religious poet whose treatment of imminent death is at times distinguished. Her poetry achieves a remarkable range of feeling; it is at times a vehicle of comedy, of pathos, or of rage. Although she is not inventive in terms of technique, she brings to poetry a perspective and a tone of voice that are truly individual. In all of this, it is possible to recognize a poet of substance.
Elizabeth Clarke
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198263982
- eISBN:
- 9780191682698
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198263982.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Literature, Theology
This introductory chapter begins by setting out the purpose of the book, which is to explore George Herbert’s success in creating the role for himself of the Reformation poet in unpromising ...
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This introductory chapter begins by setting out the purpose of the book, which is to explore George Herbert’s success in creating the role for himself of the Reformation poet in unpromising 17th-century circumstances. It then discusses the theological views of George Herbert, critics of Herbert, and issues in literary theory and theology in the 17th century.Less
This introductory chapter begins by setting out the purpose of the book, which is to explore George Herbert’s success in creating the role for himself of the Reformation poet in unpromising 17th-century circumstances. It then discusses the theological views of George Herbert, critics of Herbert, and issues in literary theory and theology in the 17th century.
Jerome J. McGann
- Published in print:
- 1988
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780198117506
- eISBN:
- 9780191670961
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198117506.003.0009
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
One of the difficulties which an explicitly Christian poem, or artwork, presents for criticism is its appearance of thematic uniformity. Readers of such a poem frequently seem to think that the ideas ...
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One of the difficulties which an explicitly Christian poem, or artwork, presents for criticism is its appearance of thematic uniformity. Readers of such a poem frequently seem to think that the ideas are transcendent rather than historically particular. The enormous revival of interest in Christian and even Catholic poetry which began in the Modern Period and which flourished with New Criticism did not take any serious account of the work of Christina Rossetti. This chapter asks why is it that not a single critic associated with the New Critical movement ever wrote anything about Christina Rossetti. Fortunately, the ultimate marginality of Rossetti 's particular Christian stance was to become the source of its final strength, the privilege of its historical backwardness.Less
One of the difficulties which an explicitly Christian poem, or artwork, presents for criticism is its appearance of thematic uniformity. Readers of such a poem frequently seem to think that the ideas are transcendent rather than historically particular. The enormous revival of interest in Christian and even Catholic poetry which began in the Modern Period and which flourished with New Criticism did not take any serious account of the work of Christina Rossetti. This chapter asks why is it that not a single critic associated with the New Critical movement ever wrote anything about Christina Rossetti. Fortunately, the ultimate marginality of Rossetti 's particular Christian stance was to become the source of its final strength, the privilege of its historical backwardness.
Dana Greene
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252037108
- eISBN:
- 9780252094217
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252037108.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
Kenneth Rexroth called Denise Levertov (1923–1997) “the most subtly skillful poet of her generation, the most profound, ... and the most moving.” Author of twenty-four volumes of poetry, four books ...
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Kenneth Rexroth called Denise Levertov (1923–1997) “the most subtly skillful poet of her generation, the most profound, ... and the most moving.” Author of twenty-four volumes of poetry, four books of essays, and several translations, Levertov became a lauded and honored poet. Born in England, she published her first book of poems at age twenty-three, but it was not until she married and came to the United States in 1948 that she found her poetic voice, helped by the likes of William Carlos Williams, Robert Duncan, and Robert Creeley. Shortly before her death in 1997, the woman who claimed no country as home was nominated to be America's poet laureate. This book examines Levertov's interviews, essays, and self-revelatory poetry to discern the conflict and torment she both endured and created in her attempts to deal with her own psyche, her relationships with family, friends, lovers, colleagues, and the times in which she lived. This book is the first complete biography of Levertov, a woman who claimed she did not want a biography, insisting that it was her work that she hoped would endure. And yet she confessed that her poetry in its various forms—lyric, political, natural, and religious—derived from her life experience. Although a substantial body of criticism has established Levertov as a major poet of the later twentieth century, the book represents the first attempt to set her poetry within the framework of her often tumultuous life.Less
Kenneth Rexroth called Denise Levertov (1923–1997) “the most subtly skillful poet of her generation, the most profound, ... and the most moving.” Author of twenty-four volumes of poetry, four books of essays, and several translations, Levertov became a lauded and honored poet. Born in England, she published her first book of poems at age twenty-three, but it was not until she married and came to the United States in 1948 that she found her poetic voice, helped by the likes of William Carlos Williams, Robert Duncan, and Robert Creeley. Shortly before her death in 1997, the woman who claimed no country as home was nominated to be America's poet laureate. This book examines Levertov's interviews, essays, and self-revelatory poetry to discern the conflict and torment she both endured and created in her attempts to deal with her own psyche, her relationships with family, friends, lovers, colleagues, and the times in which she lived. This book is the first complete biography of Levertov, a woman who claimed she did not want a biography, insisting that it was her work that she hoped would endure. And yet she confessed that her poetry in its various forms—lyric, political, natural, and religious—derived from her life experience. Although a substantial body of criticism has established Levertov as a major poet of the later twentieth century, the book represents the first attempt to set her poetry within the framework of her often tumultuous life.
Margret Fetzer
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719083440
- eISBN:
- 9781781700051
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719083440.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This chapter discusses the passionate connections between Donne's divine and worldly poetry. It shows that while Donne's erotic poems are more indebted to religious metaphor, his nineteen ‘Holy ...
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This chapter discusses the passionate connections between Donne's divine and worldly poetry. It shows that while Donne's erotic poems are more indebted to religious metaphor, his nineteen ‘Holy Sonnets’ rely more on erotic imagery. The chapter then analyses and compares Donne's religiously erotic poems with his erotically religious poetry. It determines that Donne's erotic poetry views love as a form of (artful) performance and engages in some form of histrionics of love making, also showing that role-play and theatricality are two main features of Donne's devotional and erotic writings.Less
This chapter discusses the passionate connections between Donne's divine and worldly poetry. It shows that while Donne's erotic poems are more indebted to religious metaphor, his nineteen ‘Holy Sonnets’ rely more on erotic imagery. The chapter then analyses and compares Donne's religiously erotic poems with his erotically religious poetry. It determines that Donne's erotic poetry views love as a form of (artful) performance and engages in some form of histrionics of love making, also showing that role-play and theatricality are two main features of Donne's devotional and erotic writings.
Jerome J. McGann
- Published in print:
- 1988
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780198117506
- eISBN:
- 9780191670961
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198117506.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter considers the works of Christina Rossetti. Rossetti presents a peculiarly useful subject through which to explore how certain writers move in or out of critical attention. In addition, ...
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This chapter considers the works of Christina Rossetti. Rossetti presents a peculiarly useful subject through which to explore how certain writers move in or out of critical attention. In addition, her religious poetry offers a testing ground in which to work out a methodology of stylistic periodization. Because Christian poems, especially in the Anglican and Anglo–Catholic tradition, preserve a more or less stable ideology between the 16th and the early 20th centuries, their period-specific characteristics can be more readily isolated and studied. Anyone who has studied Christina Rossetti knows the frusatration of working with the hitherto ‘standard’ collection of her poems edited by her brother William Michael Rossetti. Meanwhile, her poetry takes up an ideological position which is far more radical than the middle-class feminist positions current in her epoch. The principal factor which enabled her to overleap those positions was her severe Christianity.Less
This chapter considers the works of Christina Rossetti. Rossetti presents a peculiarly useful subject through which to explore how certain writers move in or out of critical attention. In addition, her religious poetry offers a testing ground in which to work out a methodology of stylistic periodization. Because Christian poems, especially in the Anglican and Anglo–Catholic tradition, preserve a more or less stable ideology between the 16th and the early 20th centuries, their period-specific characteristics can be more readily isolated and studied. Anyone who has studied Christina Rossetti knows the frusatration of working with the hitherto ‘standard’ collection of her poems edited by her brother William Michael Rossetti. Meanwhile, her poetry takes up an ideological position which is far more radical than the middle-class feminist positions current in her epoch. The principal factor which enabled her to overleap those positions was her severe Christianity.
Walter Cohen
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- March 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198732679
- eISBN:
- 9780191796951
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198732679.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
Lyric poetry in the classical languages and various vernaculars is evident in the earliest medieval centuries, from the beginning of medieval literature. But an international style marked by shared ...
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Lyric poetry in the classical languages and various vernaculars is evident in the earliest medieval centuries, from the beginning of medieval literature. But an international style marked by shared forms and themes—European literature in the strong sense—dates from the innovations in Occitan love lyric beginning at the close of the eleventh century. That poetry draws on at least three post-classical traditions. One can be traced back through religious poetry in Latin, Greek, and Syriac, itself based on the Bible and in conflict with Manichaeism. A second is indebted to Semitic poetry of al-Andalus, in today’s Spain. A third draws on the Cathar heresy, which has Near Eastern roots. In turn, Occitan love poetry most crucially influences Sicily, where the sonnet is invented. Tuscan poets adapt the form, which via, Petrarch, defines the main line of European lyric.Less
Lyric poetry in the classical languages and various vernaculars is evident in the earliest medieval centuries, from the beginning of medieval literature. But an international style marked by shared forms and themes—European literature in the strong sense—dates from the innovations in Occitan love lyric beginning at the close of the eleventh century. That poetry draws on at least three post-classical traditions. One can be traced back through religious poetry in Latin, Greek, and Syriac, itself based on the Bible and in conflict with Manichaeism. A second is indebted to Semitic poetry of al-Andalus, in today’s Spain. A third draws on the Cathar heresy, which has Near Eastern roots. In turn, Occitan love poetry most crucially influences Sicily, where the sonnet is invented. Tuscan poets adapt the form, which via, Petrarch, defines the main line of European lyric.
Kirstie Blair (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9781846311369
- eISBN:
- 9781846315688
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781846315688.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
This chapter examines the formative relation between church architecture and religious poetry, particularly Tractarian poetry, in the 1830s and 1840s. It considers works from very different ...
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This chapter examines the formative relation between church architecture and religious poetry, particularly Tractarian poetry, in the 1830s and 1840s. It considers works from very different theological perspectives, including Isaac Williams' ‘The Cathedral’ and John Ruskin's Seven Lamps of Architecture, and argues that the ‘central space’ for religious feeling represented by church architecture and poetry played a major role in the shaping of belief. The chapter also looks at Coventry Patmore's writings which address the question of ‘the reconciliation of life and law’ in gothic.Less
This chapter examines the formative relation between church architecture and religious poetry, particularly Tractarian poetry, in the 1830s and 1840s. It considers works from very different theological perspectives, including Isaac Williams' ‘The Cathedral’ and John Ruskin's Seven Lamps of Architecture, and argues that the ‘central space’ for religious feeling represented by church architecture and poetry played a major role in the shaping of belief. The chapter also looks at Coventry Patmore's writings which address the question of ‘the reconciliation of life and law’ in gothic.
Tzachi Zamir
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- November 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190695088
- eISBN:
- 9780190695118
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190695088.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
The introduction sets out the book’s main themes: a philosophical reading of Paradise Lost, in which the relationships between philosophy and literature, literature and religion, and religion and ...
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The introduction sets out the book’s main themes: a philosophical reading of Paradise Lost, in which the relationships between philosophy and literature, literature and religion, and religion and philosophy are examined. The book's guiding metaphor—an ascent—is explained. The introduction explains why previous routes by which philosophy and literature have been successfully connected before are less suitable for religious poetry. The book does not follow the “compensatory” model, in which literature overcomes limitations that hamper philosophy. Instead, the reading hopes to expose episodes of misalliance between philosophy and literature. Implications for interdisciplinarity are briefly discussed. The tensions between religion and literature in relation to beauty, knowledge, and the imagination are presented. Finally, some methodological clarifications are made.Less
The introduction sets out the book’s main themes: a philosophical reading of Paradise Lost, in which the relationships between philosophy and literature, literature and religion, and religion and philosophy are examined. The book's guiding metaphor—an ascent—is explained. The introduction explains why previous routes by which philosophy and literature have been successfully connected before are less suitable for religious poetry. The book does not follow the “compensatory” model, in which literature overcomes limitations that hamper philosophy. Instead, the reading hopes to expose episodes of misalliance between philosophy and literature. Implications for interdisciplinarity are briefly discussed. The tensions between religion and literature in relation to beauty, knowledge, and the imagination are presented. Finally, some methodological clarifications are made.
Tzachi Zamir
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- November 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190695088
- eISBN:
- 9780190695118
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190695088.003.0013
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
The book concludes by specifying the ways whereby, although at some points philosophy and religious poetry must part ways, they nevertheless profit by hosting each other. Two vocations can be ...
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The book concludes by specifying the ways whereby, although at some points philosophy and religious poetry must part ways, they nevertheless profit by hosting each other. Two vocations can be mutually enriched not only by finding ways to complement each other, but by appreciating that, while overlapping in many ways, their differences are sometimes irreconcilable. Philosophy gains from enabling the poem to embody a rival paradigm of knowledge as well as a competing view of the place of knowledge in a meaningful existence. Religious poetry is deepened when it permits itself to seriously respond to philosophical questions. An argument is offered regarding why warfare (intellectual warfare) can be beneficial, and why, accordingly, a philosophical reading that preserves and even kindles this war, rather than one that hopes to pacify it, can be revealing.Less
The book concludes by specifying the ways whereby, although at some points philosophy and religious poetry must part ways, they nevertheless profit by hosting each other. Two vocations can be mutually enriched not only by finding ways to complement each other, but by appreciating that, while overlapping in many ways, their differences are sometimes irreconcilable. Philosophy gains from enabling the poem to embody a rival paradigm of knowledge as well as a competing view of the place of knowledge in a meaningful existence. Religious poetry is deepened when it permits itself to seriously respond to philosophical questions. An argument is offered regarding why warfare (intellectual warfare) can be beneficial, and why, accordingly, a philosophical reading that preserves and even kindles this war, rather than one that hopes to pacify it, can be revealing.
Seth L. Schein
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780199589418
- eISBN:
- 9780191808456
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199589418.003.0006
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (HHAphr) artfully combines a series of contrasts between humanity and divinity with cosmic history in a special kind of religious poetry that is unique in archaic Greek ...
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The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (HHAphr) artfully combines a series of contrasts between humanity and divinity with cosmic history in a special kind of religious poetry that is unique in archaic Greek epic as we know it. The Iliad, Odyssey, and Works and Days are concerned mainly with the human condition, the Theogony and most of the Homeric Hymns with the gods and the genesis of the cosmic order. Only HHAphr and the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (HHDem) make divinity and humanity coequal poetic themes, and only HHAphr ends with the goddess’s defeat and a radical diminution of her power, even as her gifts enable Anchises to transcend the limits of mortality through sexual pleasure, fertility, and a royal lineage. Close attention to diction, style, and narrative technique clarifies how artfully the poem celebrates ‘the works of Aphrodite’ by narrating her simultaneous defeat and triumph and those of Anchises.Less
The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (HHAphr) artfully combines a series of contrasts between humanity and divinity with cosmic history in a special kind of religious poetry that is unique in archaic Greek epic as we know it. The Iliad, Odyssey, and Works and Days are concerned mainly with the human condition, the Theogony and most of the Homeric Hymns with the gods and the genesis of the cosmic order. Only HHAphr and the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (HHDem) make divinity and humanity coequal poetic themes, and only HHAphr ends with the goddess’s defeat and a radical diminution of her power, even as her gifts enable Anchises to transcend the limits of mortality through sexual pleasure, fertility, and a royal lineage. Close attention to diction, style, and narrative technique clarifies how artfully the poem celebrates ‘the works of Aphrodite’ by narrating her simultaneous defeat and triumph and those of Anchises.
Joel B. Davis
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780198823445
- eISBN:
- 9780191871122
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198823445.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
Poems LXXVI–LXXXII in Greville’s sonnet sequence, Caelica, are among the most heavily revised writings in all of the Warwick manuscripts. The poems struggle to reveal in the lexicon of courtly love ...
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Poems LXXVI–LXXXII in Greville’s sonnet sequence, Caelica, are among the most heavily revised writings in all of the Warwick manuscripts. The poems struggle to reveal in the lexicon of courtly love the workings of positive law and temporal power, implicitly understood in opposition to natural law and grace. In these poems, grace signifies its very opposite, not just a parody of itself but a perversion of itself, which subjects such as the ‘dull spirits’ of poem LXXX experience as temporal power. But Greville also places in the midst of these analytical poems one gem of clarity, poem LXXXII, shining there like a good deed in a bad world, exhorting the reader to ‘make time, while you be/ but steppes to your eternitie’.Less
Poems LXXVI–LXXXII in Greville’s sonnet sequence, Caelica, are among the most heavily revised writings in all of the Warwick manuscripts. The poems struggle to reveal in the lexicon of courtly love the workings of positive law and temporal power, implicitly understood in opposition to natural law and grace. In these poems, grace signifies its very opposite, not just a parody of itself but a perversion of itself, which subjects such as the ‘dull spirits’ of poem LXXX experience as temporal power. But Greville also places in the midst of these analytical poems one gem of clarity, poem LXXXII, shining there like a good deed in a bad world, exhorting the reader to ‘make time, while you be/ but steppes to your eternitie’.
Adrian Streete
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780198823445
- eISBN:
- 9780191871122
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198823445.003.0010
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
Is sin something that exists materially? Or is it mere privation, a negative category that nonetheless moves the sinner away from the good? If so, then how does that movement occur, and to what end? ...
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Is sin something that exists materially? Or is it mere privation, a negative category that nonetheless moves the sinner away from the good? If so, then how does that movement occur, and to what end? If man is, as Fulke Greville often argues in his religious poetry, ‘a creature of vncreated sinne’, then how is it possible for something uncreated to have an operative effect? My argument is that Greville’s work is fully engaged with contemporary philosophical and grammatical debates on these questions. By examining his use of the terms ‘privation’, ‘deprivation’, and ‘unprivation’ in his sonnet cycle Caelica, we can see a sophisticated and intellectually daring response to the problem of ‘vncreated sinne’.Less
Is sin something that exists materially? Or is it mere privation, a negative category that nonetheless moves the sinner away from the good? If so, then how does that movement occur, and to what end? If man is, as Fulke Greville often argues in his religious poetry, ‘a creature of vncreated sinne’, then how is it possible for something uncreated to have an operative effect? My argument is that Greville’s work is fully engaged with contemporary philosophical and grammatical debates on these questions. By examining his use of the terms ‘privation’, ‘deprivation’, and ‘unprivation’ in his sonnet cycle Caelica, we can see a sophisticated and intellectually daring response to the problem of ‘vncreated sinne’.
