The Poetic Imagination

Catalog description

This course will examine poetry written out of the Western Christian tradition. Although the readings will provide something of a historical overview, the emphasis will be on twentieth-century works. By concentrating on literary art of a non-narrative nature, we should be able to focus more keenly on the power of language and the relation between art and theology, truth, and beauty. How do the particular qualities of verse lend themselves to spiritual, theological and philosophical exploration. Does telling the truth by telling it slant (to paraphrase Emily Dickinson) gain us different truths than those found through prose?