Breaking the Silence

This collection of essays is devoted to the intersections of poetic speech, literary criticism, theology and philosophy. The emphasis falls on the connection between poetry and Logos, word and flesh in poetry from the seventeenth century to the present day.

This book of essays on poetic speech, viewed in a literary-critical, theological and philosophical light, explores the connections and disconnections between vulnerable human words, so often burdened with doubt and pain, and the ultimate kenosis of the divine Word on the Cross. An introductory discussion of language and prayer is followed by reflections linking poetry with religious experience and theology, especially apophatic, and questioning the ability of language to reach out beyond itself. The central section foregrounds the motif of the suffering flesh, while the final section, including essays on seventeenth-century English metaphysical poetry and several of the great poets of the twentieth century, is devoted to the sounds and rhythms which give a poem its own kind of «body».

Autorentext

Professor Mägorzata Grzegorzewska lectures at the Institute of English Studies, University of Warsaw, Poland. Professor Jean Ward lectures at the Institute of English and American Studies, Gdäsk University, Poland. Professor Mark S. Burrows lectures at the University of Applied Sciences, Bochum, Germany.

Zusammenfassung
«The volume, unified around a clearly defined topic but treating it from a great variety of perspectives, is a valuable and inspiring contribution to the study of intersections of poetry, philosophy, and religion.»
(Barbara Kowalik, Studia Bobolanum 4/2015)

Inhalt
Contents: Tadeusz Sawek: The Tremulous Word: On Language in Prayer Jennifer Reek: Word into Flesh / Flesh into Word: The Making of an Incarnational Textuality Bernard Sawicki OSB: The Dogmatic Definition of the Council of Chalcedon (451) of Two Natures in the Person of Jesus Christ as a Criterion of the Incarnational Character of Poetry Marcin Polkowski: «That true word shal be felt withall». The Incarnation of the Word in Sibilline Oracles as a Theme of Renaissance Poetry and Iconography Stefano Maria Casella: Eugenio Montale, «The Poor Nestorian at a Loss» Jamie Callison: Celestial Music Unheard: T. S. Eliot, «Marina» and the Via Negativa Mirosawa Modrzewska: Robert Burns's «Jarring Thoughts»: Carnivalesque Metaphorisations of Existentialist Spirituality Olga Wodarczyk-Elsbach: The Embodied «I», the Suffering «I» in the Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins Katarzyna Dudek: World as the Icon of the Word: Sacramental Imagination in R. S. Thomas's Nature Poems Przemysaw Michalski: Lacerating Logos. The Divinity of R. S. Thomas's Mythic Poems - A Reckless Experimenter or a Selfless Saviour? Jacek Gutorow: Words Against Words. Four Quartets and the Failure of Poetry David Malcolm: Feet in Eden?: Some Aspects of Technique in Religious Verse - Edwin Muir, Jon Silkin, and Anne Stevenson Martin Potter: Incarnation and Embodiment in The Poetry and Theoretical Writings of David Jones Mary Elisabeth Regina Esser: «One feels its action moving in the blood»: Arrhythmia as the Art of Reality in Wallace Stevens's «Esthétique du Mal» Klaudia czyska: Word-As-Flesh Made Artefact: Andrew Marvell's Poetic Moulding Of The Word.