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. |
From inside the book
Results 1-3 of 42
... images they invoked , including words and images drawn directly from or alluding to the Bible , come laden with meanings and implications inherent in the religious tra- dition they shared . To be sure , they were separated by more than ...
... images , bread of life and bread of love . All those images echo again in the evocative poem in his next col- lection Pieta ( 1966 ) , “ The Moor , " which ends : " I walked on , / Simple and poor , while the air crumbled / And broke on ...
... images in the traditions surrounding the cele- bration , " reminders of the country abroad , that abiding wildness ... image of the Cross looms above them , for Thomas seldom wrote of the Nativity or the Incarnation without the shadow of ...
Contents
Preface | 1 |
The Vocations of Priest and Poet | 13 |
Country Parsons | 36 |
Copyright | |
9 other sections not shown
Other editions - View all
Poets' Meeting: George Herbert, R.S. Thomas, and the Argument with God William J. McGill Limited preview - 2003 |