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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... poets who have been priests and other priests who have been poets . Indeed , in the Anglican communion which both served as priests the dual vocation seems almost commonplace . In The Poetic Imagination . An Angli- can Spiritual ...
... poets and their readers . Thus biblical language and imagery pervaded the writing of Herbert , Vaughan , Traherne , and others . As Countryman observed , " It becomes a language for conversation with God " ( The Poetic Imagination , p ...
... poetic images and meta- phors drawn from nature , music , art , literature . The usage is dazzling and sometimes cacophonous , but always provocative . The final poem in Mass for Hard Times , " Sonata in X , " vividly illustrates these ...
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 |