Faith, Hope and Poetry: Theology and the Poetic Imagination. By MALCOLM GUITE.

Abstract

Faith, Hope and Poetry operates on three levels. Level 1 is a critical appreciation and analysis of particular poems from across the vast span of English literature beginning with The Dream of the Rood and ending, in the present, with the work of Seamus Heaney. Level 2 explores the idea that transfigured vision is fundamental to the experience both of writing and reading poetry, while Level 3 argues that the transfiguring of vision through a revitalized imagination is a common task for science, poetry, and theology. Foundational to what is a profound and inspirational book are Guite’s detailed and insightful readings of firstly The Dream of the Rood, followed by works from the pens of Shakespeare, Davies, Donne, Herbert, Vaughan, Milton, Coleridge, Hardy, Larkin, Hill, and Heaney. However one responds to the arguments that Guite develops from his readings of these poems, it would be difficult to deny his attention to and appreciation of the differing forms and images by which these poets have shaped their particular insights and perceptions. That he does not restrict his analysis to explicitly religious verse is an indication both that he writes as a lover of poetry per se and that his critical appreciations tap into the nature as opposed solely to the content of the poems he discusses.