Poets' Meeting: George Herbert, R.S. Thomas, and the Argument with GodGeorge Herbert (1593-1633) and R.S. Thomas (1913-2000), each a major English poet and an Anglican priest, lived in very different times, one before the Scientific Revolution, the Enlightenment, and industrialization, and one following. Yet the two men and their poetry bear striking resemblances: Both loved nature and music, both were pacifists, and both struggled with the claims of faith, the nature of the spiritual life, and the recurrent silences of God. This book demonstrates that when their lives and poems are studied side by side, each man enhances our understanding of the other. The first essay deals with their sense of calling as priests and poets. The work then explores topics that relate to their roles as parish priests: ministry, the Bible, the Eucharist, and prayer. Several essays follow dealing with broader questions of the human condition: faith, sin, love, reason and science, and nature. The work concludes by considering their poems about Christmas, Good Friday, and Easter. |
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... dark Filling in their smiling sandwich . Priests have a long way to go . The people wait for them to come To them over the broken glass Of their vows , making them pay With their sweat's coinage for their correction . He goes up a green ...
... dark chalice where the wine shone , felt it sharp on their tongue , shivered as at a sin remembered , and heard love cry momentarily in their hearts ' manger . - “ Hill Christmas , " Laboratories of the Spirit The second of these with ...
... dark it will grow , I stare up into the darkness of his countenance , knowing it a reflection of the three days and nights at the back of love's looking- glass even a god must spend . We remember the story , but we remember through the ...
Contents
Preface | 1 |
The Vocations of Priest and Poet | 13 |
Country Parsons | 36 |
Copyright | |
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Poets' Meeting: George Herbert, R.S. Thomas, and the Argument with God William J. McGill Limited preview - 2003 |