Chapters into Verse: Poetry in English Inspired by the Bible: Volume 1: Genesis to Malachi

Forsideomslag
Robert Atwan, Laurance Wieder
Oxford University Press, 6. maj 1993 - 432 sider
For generations, poets have turned to the Bible for insight and inspiration. What did so many creative minds find in scripture? Is the Bible still a vital source of poetic inspirations? Chapters Into Verse is the first comprehensive collection ever made of poems written in English inspired by the Bible. A groundbreaking anthology, it introduces readers to a distinct heritage of English poetry: the scriptural tradition. Though frequently ignored and sometimes suppressed, this tradition rivals the classical and is every bit as venerable. Drawing a unique map of the history of English poetry, the two volumes of Chapters Into Verse survey and define the literary legacy of the Scriptures from the fourteenth century to the present. Each volume is arranged in scriptural order, and each poem is preceded by the biblical passage that inspired it. Thus readers can conveniently witness the various ways sacred text has sparked the imagination of poets throughout the ages. In Volume I, which covers Genesis to Malachi, almost every book of the Old Testament is represented. The collection features verses both famous and unfamiliar, from Milton's Paradise Lost and Lord Byron's Hebrew Melodies to Christopher Smart's hymns and Mary Herbert's psalms. The editors have included poems by virtually all the prominent religious poets--among them, John Donne, George Herbert, Henry Vaughan, Edward Taylor, and Gerard Manley Hopkins. Included, too, are devotional and visionary works from a wide range of vintage poets--Robert Burns, William Blake, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Christina Rossetti, Alfred Tennyson, and Robert Browning. Proving that the Bible is just as powerful a source of inspiration today as it was in the past, the collection assembles a mixed congregation of modern and contemporary poets, such as Marianne Moore, Delmore Schwartz, Dylan Thomas, Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams, Countee Cullen, e.e. cummings, William Butler Yeats, Robert Lowell, Hugh McDiarmid, Laura (Riding) Jackson, Charles Reznikoff, A.D. Hope, Geoffrey Hill, Denise Levertov, Philip Levine, John Ashbery, and Derek Walcott. Of enduring interest to readers of both scripture and literature, this anthology illuminates key passages of the Old Testament. The measured speech and inspired leaps of poetry offer a spirited alternative to the textual exegesis usually supplied by prose commentary. As such, Chapters Into Verse is truly a poets' Bible. In selection after selection, readers will encounter an astonishing variety of religious experiences, as a host of poets from many eras and many backgrounds respond to Holy Scripture spiritually, profoundly, and imaginatively.

Fra bogen

Indhold

EXTRACTS
3
THE FOUR GOSPELS HARMONIZED
9
THE ACTS and EPISTLES
242
REVELATION
339
Index of Titles
379
Index of First Lines
383
Index of Poets
389
Copyright

Almindelige termer og sætninger

Populære passager

Side 95 - So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground ; And should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how. For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself ; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the 'ear.
Side 286 - The world recedes ; it disappears ! Heaven opens on my eyes ! my ears With sounds seraphic ring ! Lend, lend your wings ! I mount ! I fly ! O grave, where is thy victory ? O death, where is thy sting...
Side 355 - And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.
Side 65 - The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband : for thou hast had five husbands ; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband : in that saidst thou truly.
Side 95 - He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.
Side 241 - Verily, verily, I say unto thee, When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest : but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not.

Om forfatteren (1993)

Robert Atwan is founder and series editor of the annual Best American Essays. The editor of numerous anthologies, he has written on the ancient literature of the Near East and his critical essays and poetry reviews have appeared in many national periodicals. Laurance Wieder is the author of several volumes of poetry, including The Coronet of Tours; No Harm Done; The Last Century: Selected Poems; and One Hundred Fifty Psalms, a complete psalter. He has taught Bible and Ancient Authors at Cornell University.

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