Sacramental Poetics at the Dawn of Secularism

Sacramental Poetics at the Dawn of Secularism

Author: Regina Mara Schwartz

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2008-05-30

Total Pages: 216

ISBN-13: 0804779554

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Sacramental Poetics at the Dawn of Secularism asks what happened when the world was shaken by challenges to the sacred order as people had known it, an order that regulated both their actions and beliefs. When Reformers gave up the doctrine of transubstantiation (even as they held onto revised forms of the Eucharist), they lost a doctrine that infuses all materiality, spirituality, and signification with the presence of God. That presence guaranteed the cleansing of human fault, the establishment of justice, the success of communication, the possibility of union with God and another, and love. These longings were not lost but displaced, Schwartz argues, onto other cultural forms in a movement from ritual to the arts, from the sacrament to the sacramental. Investigating the relationship of the arts to the sacred, Schwartz returns to the primary meaning of "sacramental" as "sign making," noting that because the sign always points beyond itself, it participates in transcendence, and this evocation of transcendence, of mystery, is the work of a sacramental poetics.


Book Synopsis Sacramental Poetics at the Dawn of Secularism by : Regina Mara Schwartz

Download or read book Sacramental Poetics at the Dawn of Secularism written by Regina Mara Schwartz and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2008-05-30 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sacramental Poetics at the Dawn of Secularism asks what happened when the world was shaken by challenges to the sacred order as people had known it, an order that regulated both their actions and beliefs. When Reformers gave up the doctrine of transubstantiation (even as they held onto revised forms of the Eucharist), they lost a doctrine that infuses all materiality, spirituality, and signification with the presence of God. That presence guaranteed the cleansing of human fault, the establishment of justice, the success of communication, the possibility of union with God and another, and love. These longings were not lost but displaced, Schwartz argues, onto other cultural forms in a movement from ritual to the arts, from the sacrament to the sacramental. Investigating the relationship of the arts to the sacred, Schwartz returns to the primary meaning of "sacramental" as "sign making," noting that because the sign always points beyond itself, it participates in transcendence, and this evocation of transcendence, of mystery, is the work of a sacramental poetics.


Toward a Sacramental Poetics

Toward a Sacramental Poetics

Author: Regina M. Schwartz

Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess

Published: 2021-12-15

Total Pages: 373

ISBN-13: 026820151X

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Distinguished theologians and literary scholars explore the workings of the sacred and the sacramental in language and literature. What does a sacramental poetics offer that secular cultural theory, for all of its advances, may have missed? How does a sacred understanding of the world differ from a strictly secular one? This volume develops the theory of “sacramental poetics” advanced by Regina Schwartz in her 2008 book on English Reformation writers, taking the theory in new directions while demonstrating how enduring and widespread this poetics is. Toward a Sacramental Poetics addresses two urgent questions we have inherited from a half century of secular critical thought. First, how do we understand the relationship between word and thing, sign and signified, other than as some naive direct representation or as a completely arbitrary language game? And, second, how can the subject experience the world beyond instrumentalizing it? The contributors conclude that a sacramental poetics responds to both questions, offering an understanding of the sign that, by pointing beyond itself, suggests wonder. The contributors explore a variety of topics in relation to sacramental poetics, including political theology, miracles, modernity, translation and transformation, and the metaphysics of love. They draw from diverse resources, from Dante to Hopkins, from Richard Hooker to Stoker's Dracula, from the King James Bible to Wallace Stevens. Toward a Sacramental Poetics is an important contribution to studies of religion and literature, the sacred and the secular, literary theory, and theologies of aesthetics. Contributors: Regina M. Schwartz, Patrick J. McGrath, Rowan Williams, Subha Mukherji, Stephen Little, Kevin Hart, John Milbank, Hent de Vries, Jean-Luc Marion, Ingolf U. Dalferth, Lori Branch, and Paul Mariani.


Book Synopsis Toward a Sacramental Poetics by : Regina M. Schwartz

Download or read book Toward a Sacramental Poetics written by Regina M. Schwartz and published by University of Notre Dame Pess. This book was released on 2021-12-15 with total page 373 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Distinguished theologians and literary scholars explore the workings of the sacred and the sacramental in language and literature. What does a sacramental poetics offer that secular cultural theory, for all of its advances, may have missed? How does a sacred understanding of the world differ from a strictly secular one? This volume develops the theory of “sacramental poetics” advanced by Regina Schwartz in her 2008 book on English Reformation writers, taking the theory in new directions while demonstrating how enduring and widespread this poetics is. Toward a Sacramental Poetics addresses two urgent questions we have inherited from a half century of secular critical thought. First, how do we understand the relationship between word and thing, sign and signified, other than as some naive direct representation or as a completely arbitrary language game? And, second, how can the subject experience the world beyond instrumentalizing it? The contributors conclude that a sacramental poetics responds to both questions, offering an understanding of the sign that, by pointing beyond itself, suggests wonder. The contributors explore a variety of topics in relation to sacramental poetics, including political theology, miracles, modernity, translation and transformation, and the metaphysics of love. They draw from diverse resources, from Dante to Hopkins, from Richard Hooker to Stoker's Dracula, from the King James Bible to Wallace Stevens. Toward a Sacramental Poetics is an important contribution to studies of religion and literature, the sacred and the secular, literary theory, and theologies of aesthetics. Contributors: Regina M. Schwartz, Patrick J. McGrath, Rowan Williams, Subha Mukherji, Stephen Little, Kevin Hart, John Milbank, Hent de Vries, Jean-Luc Marion, Ingolf U. Dalferth, Lori Branch, and Paul Mariani.


The Eucharist, Poetics, and Secularization from the Middle Ages to Milton

The Eucharist, Poetics, and Secularization from the Middle Ages to Milton

Author: Shaun Ross

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2023-03-22

Total Pages: 295

ISBN-13: 0192872893

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The Eucharist, Poetics, and Secularization from the Middle Ages to Milton explains the astonishing centrality of the eucharist to poets with a variety of denominational affiliations, writing on a range of subjects, across an extended period in literary history. Whether they are praying, thinking about politics, lamenting unrequited love, or telling fart jokes, late medieval and early modern English poets return again and again to the eucharist as a way of working out literary problems. Tracing this connection from the fourteenth through the seventeenth century, this book shows how controversies surrounding the nature of signification in the sacrament informed understandings of poetry. Connecting medieval to early modern England, it presents a history of 'eucharistic poetics' as it appears in the work of seven key poets: the Pearl-poet, Chaucer, Robert Southwell, John Donne, George Herbert, Richard Crashaw, and John Milton. Reassessing this range of poetic voices, The Eucharist, Poetics, and Secularization overturns an oft-repeated argument that early modern poetry's fascination with the eucharist resulted from the Protestant rejection of transubstantiation and its supposedly enchanted worldview. Instead of this tired secularization story, it fleshes out a more capacious conception of eucharistic presence, showing that what interested poets about the eucharist was its insistence that the mechanics of representation are always entangled with the self's relation to the body and to others. The book thus forwards a new historical account of eucharistic poetics, placing this literary phenomenon within a longstanding negotiation between embodiment and disembodiment in Western religious and cultural history.


Book Synopsis The Eucharist, Poetics, and Secularization from the Middle Ages to Milton by : Shaun Ross

Download or read book The Eucharist, Poetics, and Secularization from the Middle Ages to Milton written by Shaun Ross and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023-03-22 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Eucharist, Poetics, and Secularization from the Middle Ages to Milton explains the astonishing centrality of the eucharist to poets with a variety of denominational affiliations, writing on a range of subjects, across an extended period in literary history. Whether they are praying, thinking about politics, lamenting unrequited love, or telling fart jokes, late medieval and early modern English poets return again and again to the eucharist as a way of working out literary problems. Tracing this connection from the fourteenth through the seventeenth century, this book shows how controversies surrounding the nature of signification in the sacrament informed understandings of poetry. Connecting medieval to early modern England, it presents a history of 'eucharistic poetics' as it appears in the work of seven key poets: the Pearl-poet, Chaucer, Robert Southwell, John Donne, George Herbert, Richard Crashaw, and John Milton. Reassessing this range of poetic voices, The Eucharist, Poetics, and Secularization overturns an oft-repeated argument that early modern poetry's fascination with the eucharist resulted from the Protestant rejection of transubstantiation and its supposedly enchanted worldview. Instead of this tired secularization story, it fleshes out a more capacious conception of eucharistic presence, showing that what interested poets about the eucharist was its insistence that the mechanics of representation are always entangled with the self's relation to the body and to others. The book thus forwards a new historical account of eucharistic poetics, placing this literary phenomenon within a longstanding negotiation between embodiment and disembodiment in Western religious and cultural history.


Boundless Innocence in Thomas Traherne's Poetic Theology

Boundless Innocence in Thomas Traherne's Poetic Theology

Author: Elizabeth S. Dodd

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-03-16

Total Pages: 255

ISBN-13: 1317172930

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The seventeenth-century poet and divine Thomas Traherne finds innocence in every stage of existence. He finds it in the chaos at the origins of creation as well as in the blessed order of Eden. He finds it in the activities of grace and the hope of glory, but also in the trials of misery and even in the abyss of the Fall. Boundless Innocence in Thomas Traherne’s Poetic Theology traces innocence through Traherne’s works as it transgresses the boundaries of the estates of the soul. Using grammatical and literary categories it explores various aspects of his poetic theology of innocence, uncovering the boundless desire which is embodied in the yearning cry: ’Were all Men Wise and Innocent...’ Recovering and reinterpreting a key but increasingly neglected theme in Traherne’s poetic theology, this book addresses fundamental misconceptions of the meaning of innocence in his work. Through a contextual and theological approach, it indicates the unexplored richness, complexity and diversity of this theme in the history of literature and theology.


Book Synopsis Boundless Innocence in Thomas Traherne's Poetic Theology by : Elizabeth S. Dodd

Download or read book Boundless Innocence in Thomas Traherne's Poetic Theology written by Elizabeth S. Dodd and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-03-16 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The seventeenth-century poet and divine Thomas Traherne finds innocence in every stage of existence. He finds it in the chaos at the origins of creation as well as in the blessed order of Eden. He finds it in the activities of grace and the hope of glory, but also in the trials of misery and even in the abyss of the Fall. Boundless Innocence in Thomas Traherne’s Poetic Theology traces innocence through Traherne’s works as it transgresses the boundaries of the estates of the soul. Using grammatical and literary categories it explores various aspects of his poetic theology of innocence, uncovering the boundless desire which is embodied in the yearning cry: ’Were all Men Wise and Innocent...’ Recovering and reinterpreting a key but increasingly neglected theme in Traherne’s poetic theology, this book addresses fundamental misconceptions of the meaning of innocence in his work. Through a contextual and theological approach, it indicates the unexplored richness, complexity and diversity of this theme in the history of literature and theology.


Cormac McCarthy and the Signs of Sacrament

Cormac McCarthy and the Signs of Sacrament

Author: Matthew L. Potts

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2017-03-23

Total Pages: 235

ISBN-13: 150133073X

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"Reconceives the moral significance of Cormac McCarthy's novels through a constructive engagement with postmodern theory and Christian theology"--


Book Synopsis Cormac McCarthy and the Signs of Sacrament by : Matthew L. Potts

Download or read book Cormac McCarthy and the Signs of Sacrament written by Matthew L. Potts and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2017-03-23 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Reconceives the moral significance of Cormac McCarthy's novels through a constructive engagement with postmodern theory and Christian theology"--


Reading, Desire, and the Eucharist in Early Modern Religious Poetry

Reading, Desire, and the Eucharist in Early Modern Religious Poetry

Author: Ryan Netzley

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Published: 2011-01-01

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 1442642815

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The courtly love tradition had a great influence on the themes of religious poetry—just as an absent beloved could be longed for passionately, so too could a distant God be the subject of desire. But when authors began to perceive God as immanently available, did the nature and interpretation of devotional verse change? Ryan Netzley argues that early modern religious lyrics presented both desire and reading as free, loving activities, rather than as endless struggles or dramatic quests. Reading, Desire, and the Eucharist analyzes the work of prominent early modern writers—including John Milton, Richard Crashaw, John Donne, and George Herbert—whose religious poetry presented parallels between sacramental desire and the act of understanding written texts. Netzley finds that by directing devotees to crave spiritual rather than worldly goods, these poets questioned ideas not only of what people should desire, but also how they should engage in the act of yearning. Challenging fundamental assumptions of literary criticism, Reading, Desire, and the Eucharist shows how poetry can encourage love for its own sake, rather than in the hopes of salvation.


Book Synopsis Reading, Desire, and the Eucharist in Early Modern Religious Poetry by : Ryan Netzley

Download or read book Reading, Desire, and the Eucharist in Early Modern Religious Poetry written by Ryan Netzley and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2011-01-01 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The courtly love tradition had a great influence on the themes of religious poetry—just as an absent beloved could be longed for passionately, so too could a distant God be the subject of desire. But when authors began to perceive God as immanently available, did the nature and interpretation of devotional verse change? Ryan Netzley argues that early modern religious lyrics presented both desire and reading as free, loving activities, rather than as endless struggles or dramatic quests. Reading, Desire, and the Eucharist analyzes the work of prominent early modern writers—including John Milton, Richard Crashaw, John Donne, and George Herbert—whose religious poetry presented parallels between sacramental desire and the act of understanding written texts. Netzley finds that by directing devotees to crave spiritual rather than worldly goods, these poets questioned ideas not only of what people should desire, but also how they should engage in the act of yearning. Challenging fundamental assumptions of literary criticism, Reading, Desire, and the Eucharist shows how poetry can encourage love for its own sake, rather than in the hopes of salvation.


Liturgical Liaisons

Liturgical Liaisons

Author: Jamey Heit

Publisher: Lutterworth Press

Published: 2017-08-31

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 0718846060

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When Jesus offers his body as a promise to his disciples, he initiates a liturgical framework that is driven by irony and betrayal. Through these deconstructive elements, however, the promise invites the disciples into an intimate space where they anticipate the fulfilment of what is to come. The Last Supper, symbol of unfinished life and sacrifice, becomes the common thread between John Donne and Emily Dickinson, whose poetics acquire liturgical - and therefore eschatological - features, and body and text become the same. By tracing the displacing and yet co-ordinating theme of the body as a textual presence, Liturgical Liaisons opens into new readings of Donne and Dickinson in a way that enriches how these figures are understood as poets. The result is a risky and rewarding understanding of how these two gurus challenged accepted theological norms of their day.


Book Synopsis Liturgical Liaisons by : Jamey Heit

Download or read book Liturgical Liaisons written by Jamey Heit and published by Lutterworth Press. This book was released on 2017-08-31 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Jesus offers his body as a promise to his disciples, he initiates a liturgical framework that is driven by irony and betrayal. Through these deconstructive elements, however, the promise invites the disciples into an intimate space where they anticipate the fulfilment of what is to come. The Last Supper, symbol of unfinished life and sacrifice, becomes the common thread between John Donne and Emily Dickinson, whose poetics acquire liturgical - and therefore eschatological - features, and body and text become the same. By tracing the displacing and yet co-ordinating theme of the body as a textual presence, Liturgical Liaisons opens into new readings of Donne and Dickinson in a way that enriches how these figures are understood as poets. The result is a risky and rewarding understanding of how these two gurus challenged accepted theological norms of their day.


Milton Now

Milton Now

Author: C. Gray

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2014-12-16

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13: 1137383100

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By bringing together Milton specialists with other innovative early modern scholars, the collection aims to embrace and encourage a methodologically adventurous study of Milton's works, analyzing them both in relation to their own moment and their many ensuing contexts.


Book Synopsis Milton Now by : C. Gray

Download or read book Milton Now written by C. Gray and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-12-16 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By bringing together Milton specialists with other innovative early modern scholars, the collection aims to embrace and encourage a methodologically adventurous study of Milton's works, analyzing them both in relation to their own moment and their many ensuing contexts.


Poetic Priesthood in the Seventeenth Century

Poetic Priesthood in the Seventeenth Century

Author: Tessie Prakas

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2022-08-25

Total Pages: 253

ISBN-13: 0192857126

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Poetic Priesthood reads seventeenth-century devotional verse as staging a surprising competition between poetry and the established church. The work of John Donne, George Herbert, Richard Crashaw, John Milton, and Thomas Traherne suggests that the demands of faith are better understood by poets than by priests--even while four of these authors were also ordained. While recent scholarship has tended to emphasize the shaping influence of the liturgy on the poetry of this period, this book argues that verse instead presents readers with a mode of articulating piety that relies on formal experimentation, and that varies from the forms of the church rather than straightforwardly reproducing them. In crafting this poetic aid to devotion, these authors practiced an alternative and even more ample form of ministry than in their ecclesiastical activities. In the wake of the Reformation, the liturgy of the English church centered on rituals of communal prayer and praise, but the poetry considered in this study suggests that such rituals in fact risk distracting worshippers from the pleasures and challenges of navigating an individual relationship with God. Yet these poets do not make this suggestion by rejecting communal rituals outright. Their verse invokes ecclesiastical practice as a basis for formal innovation that suggests how intimacy with the divine might look, feel, and sound, connecting humans with their God more precisely and more individually than the liturgy can. As they shift between explicit comment on the liturgy and more subtle departures from it in the interplay of verse form and denotation, these authors claim the work of priesthood for poetry.


Book Synopsis Poetic Priesthood in the Seventeenth Century by : Tessie Prakas

Download or read book Poetic Priesthood in the Seventeenth Century written by Tessie Prakas and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022-08-25 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Poetic Priesthood reads seventeenth-century devotional verse as staging a surprising competition between poetry and the established church. The work of John Donne, George Herbert, Richard Crashaw, John Milton, and Thomas Traherne suggests that the demands of faith are better understood by poets than by priests--even while four of these authors were also ordained. While recent scholarship has tended to emphasize the shaping influence of the liturgy on the poetry of this period, this book argues that verse instead presents readers with a mode of articulating piety that relies on formal experimentation, and that varies from the forms of the church rather than straightforwardly reproducing them. In crafting this poetic aid to devotion, these authors practiced an alternative and even more ample form of ministry than in their ecclesiastical activities. In the wake of the Reformation, the liturgy of the English church centered on rituals of communal prayer and praise, but the poetry considered in this study suggests that such rituals in fact risk distracting worshippers from the pleasures and challenges of navigating an individual relationship with God. Yet these poets do not make this suggestion by rejecting communal rituals outright. Their verse invokes ecclesiastical practice as a basis for formal innovation that suggests how intimacy with the divine might look, feel, and sound, connecting humans with their God more precisely and more individually than the liturgy can. As they shift between explicit comment on the liturgy and more subtle departures from it in the interplay of verse form and denotation, these authors claim the work of priesthood for poetry.


Conflicts of Devotion

Conflicts of Devotion

Author: Daniel R. Gibbons

Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess

Published: 2017-03-30

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 026810137X

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Who will mourn with me? Who will break bread with me? Who is my neighbor? In the wake of the religious reformations of the sixteenth century, such questions called for a new approach to the communal religious rituals and verses that shaped and commemorated many of the brightest and darkest moments of English life. In England, new forms of religious writing emerged out of a deeply fractured spiritual community. Conflicts of Devotion reshapes our understanding of the role that poetry played in the re-formation of English community, and shows us that understanding both the poetics of liturgy and the liturgical character of poetry is essential to comprehending the deep shifts in English spiritual attitudes and practices that occurred during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The liturgical, communitarian perspective of Conflicts of Devotion sheds new light on neglected texts and deepens our understanding of how major writers such as Edmund Spenser, Robert Southwell, and John Donne struggled to write their way out of the spiritual and social crises of the age of the Reformation. It also sheds new light on the roles that poetry may play in negotiating—and even overcoming—religious conflict. Attention to liturgical poetics allows us to see the broad spectrum of ways in which English poets forged new forms of spiritual community out of the very language of theological division. This book will be of great interest to teachers and students of early modern poetry and of the various fields related to Reformation studies: history, politics, and theology.


Book Synopsis Conflicts of Devotion by : Daniel R. Gibbons

Download or read book Conflicts of Devotion written by Daniel R. Gibbons and published by University of Notre Dame Pess. This book was released on 2017-03-30 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who will mourn with me? Who will break bread with me? Who is my neighbor? In the wake of the religious reformations of the sixteenth century, such questions called for a new approach to the communal religious rituals and verses that shaped and commemorated many of the brightest and darkest moments of English life. In England, new forms of religious writing emerged out of a deeply fractured spiritual community. Conflicts of Devotion reshapes our understanding of the role that poetry played in the re-formation of English community, and shows us that understanding both the poetics of liturgy and the liturgical character of poetry is essential to comprehending the deep shifts in English spiritual attitudes and practices that occurred during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The liturgical, communitarian perspective of Conflicts of Devotion sheds new light on neglected texts and deepens our understanding of how major writers such as Edmund Spenser, Robert Southwell, and John Donne struggled to write their way out of the spiritual and social crises of the age of the Reformation. It also sheds new light on the roles that poetry may play in negotiating—and even overcoming—religious conflict. Attention to liturgical poetics allows us to see the broad spectrum of ways in which English poets forged new forms of spiritual community out of the very language of theological division. This book will be of great interest to teachers and students of early modern poetry and of the various fields related to Reformation studies: history, politics, and theology.