This 1952 book is an inquiry into the relations in origin between literature and inspiration, based on a study of the practices of seers in modern communities where oral literature sill survives, and of the records of primitive poetry in the West and North. Mrs Chadwick discusses the universal reverence accorded to poets, musicians, seers, or prophets, the training they underwent, the methods of ecstasy, and the remarkable similarities of their messages in remote and different parts of the world.
This book argues that the most profound and far-reaching effects of Buddhism on Chinese culture occurred at the level of practice, specifically in religious rituals designed to cure people of disease, demonic possession, and bad luck. This practice would leave its most lasting imprint on the liturgical tradition of Taoism. In focusing on religious practice, the book provides a corrective to traditional studies of Chinese religion, which overemphasize metaphysics and spirituality.
The books of the Latter Prophets have traditionally been treated as persuasive speeches, and interpreted according to their rhetoric. At the same time, interpreters recognize the poetic form of much prophecy. This study takes up the notion of the 'prophet' as 'poet', focusing on word-play in Hosea and on the lyrical plot of that book; the case is made for treating Hosea as a stark, full-length poem of inexhaustible power.
Poetry. African American Studies. Native American Studies. When Thoreau wrote in his Journal in 1841, "Good poetry seems so simple and natural a thing that when we meet it we wonder that all men are not always poets," and when Whitman describes Leaves of Grass as a "language experiment," they are expressing an approach to poetry that never ceased and has grown continuously during recent decades. This groundbreaking anthology from the early 1970s takes such an approach in presenting the poetry of the North American continent, from pre-Columbian times to the present. It includes many recognized poets of the period, though appearing here in often unexpected contexts, and others who have been overlooked but whose contributions to the development of poetry are revolutionary. Starting from their own moment, the editors have read back into the more distant past and selected from broad American traditions works that had thitherto been considered outside the realm of poetry proper: the native poetry of the American continent, African-American sermons, blues and gospels, and the sacred, often innovative poetry of such radical religious groups as the Shakers. The book takes its title from William Blake's poem presenting the American Revolution as not only a powerful, promising and problematic historical event but the birth of a new development in man's consciousness--one that finds complex expression in the poetry of a continent. Selections mostly appear non-chronologically in juxtapositions suggesting what T. S. Eliot called the "simultaneous order" of all poetries of all times.
In this challenging and enlightening treatment, Brueggemann traces the lines from the radical vision of Moses to the solidification of royal power in Solomon to the prophetic critique of that power with a new vision of freedom in the prophets. Here he traces the broad sweep from Exodus to Kings to Jeremiah to Jesus. He highlights that the prophetic vision and not only embraces the pain of the people but creates an energy and amazement based on the new thing that God is doing. In this new edition, Brueggemann has completely revised the text, updated the notes, and added a new preface.
“Rejoice, readers, as you receive the generosity of Luci Shaw's 76 new grace-infused parable poems. Autobiography once more merges with theology as these poems illuminate in splendored natural detail how the seasons of creation parallel and explain the seasons of her life as a poet. Again and again, these poems shower us with glorious epiphanies from the natural world as it reflects God's generosity at work such as “spring's impossible news of green.” These poems confirm that in poetry as in faith “ripeness is all.” Like Wordsworth, Luci is celebrated for being a highly gifted landscape poet whose works are rich in imagery from the physical world—meadows filled with seeds, flowers, and also poems which are like "shoots" in Luci's writing life. Animals, too, great and small (beetles, cricket, and voles to bears and whales) play a major role in Luci's poetics of creation; God is likened to a great bear who leaves paw tracks for us to follow. In their deep faith and vibrant colors and designs, the poems in Generosity might be considered Luci's Book of Kells. We need to be like Luci's father who carried her poems in his briefcase to show his friends.” —Philip C. Kolin, Author, Reaching Forever: Poems; Distinguished Professor of English (Emeritus), University of Southern Mississippi
The Romantic era in England and Germany saw a sudden renewal of prophetic modes of writing. Biblical prophecy and, to a lesser extent, classical oracle again became viable models for poetry and even for journalistic prose. Notably, this development arose out of the new-found freedom of biblical interpretation that began in the mid-eighteenth century, as the Bible was increasingly seen to be a literary and mythical text. Taking Walter Benjamin’s thinking about history as a point of departure, the author shows how the model for Romantic prophecy emerges less as a prediction of the future than as a call to change in the present, even as it quotes, at key turns, texts from the past. After surveying developments in eighteenth-century biblical hermeneutics, as well as the numerous instances of prophetic eruption in Romantic poetry, the book culminates in close readings of works by Blake, Hölderlin, and Coleridge. Each of these writers interpreted the Bible in strong, variously radical and conservative ways, and each reworked prophetic texts in often startling fashion. The author’s reading of Blake focuses on the complex temporal and rhetorical dynamics at work in a prophetic tradition, with attention paid to the key mediating figure of Milton. The chapter on Hölderlin investigates the truth-claim of poetry and the consequences of Hölderlin’s insight into the necessarily figural character of poetry. The analysis of Coleridge correlates his theory of allegory and symbol with his theory and practice of political writing, which often relies on mobilizing prophetic authority. Together, the readings force us to reexamine the claims and practices of Romantic poets and thinkers and their ideas and ideologies, not without engendering some allegorical resonance with issues in our own time.
