Ecstasy and understanding
Subtitle: religious awareness in English poetry from the late Victorian to the modern period
By: edited by Adrian Grafe.
Contributors: Grafe, Adrian.
Series: Continuum literary studies series; Continuum literary studies
Publisher: Continuum
Published: 2008
Place of publication: London; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 183
ISBN-13: 9780826498649
Subjects: English poetry -- 19th century -- History and criticism; English poetry -- 20th century -- History and criticism; Religion in poetry
Description: This collection of research explores the interaction of religious awareness and literary expression in English poetry in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.  Many different types of poetics may be seen to be at work in the period 1875 to 2005, along with various kinds of religious awareness and poetic expression. Religious experience has a crucial influence on literary language, and the latter is renewed by religious culture. The religious dimension has been a decisive factor of modern English poetic expression of the last hundred years or so. The religious and mystical dimension of poetry of the period is borne out by the focus on, among other things, grace and purgation, the tension between time and eternity, redemption and the demands of eschatology, immanence and transcendence, and conversion and martyrdom. Chapters also explore how church practice and ritual, architecture and liturgy, play into the poetry of the period. This volume offers a comprehensive discussion of this important but often overlooked aspect of modern English poetry.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.