Christian Poet Research Articles

Bento Teixeira, the Inquisition and Prosopopeia

The Portuguese Inquisition in sixteenth-century Brazil and the identity of Bento Teixeira, a New Christian poet. The Latin teacher who was familiar with Greco-Latin classics and biblical texts. The inquisitorial process of Bento Teixeira. Duarte Coelho and the founding of the captaincy of Pernambuco. Jorge de Albuquerque Coelho, hero of Prosopopeia, a Renaissance epic poem. The presence of Jewish values in Prosopopeia, the first published Brazilian poem. Imitatio according to Quintilian and classical epics. The annotated editions of Prosopopeia.

A FEMININE TYPOLOGICAL TRINITY IN PROBA'S CENTO VERGILIANVS 380–414

Abstract The mid-fourth-century c.e.Cento Vergilianus de laudibus Christi retells the biblical story using cento technique (recombining excerpted lines and partial lines from Virgil into a new poem). Its author, the Christian poet Faltonia Betitia Proba, states that her aim in writing the Cento is to demonstrate that Virgil ‘sang the pious deeds of Christ’ (Vergilium cecinisse … pia munera Christi). Her compositional strategy reflects the exegetical method of typology, as explored in detail by Cullhed: by reusing particular Virgilian verses for biblical characters, Proba creates an implicit typological relationship whereby a Virgilian type both prefigures and is fulfilled by a biblical antitype. This paper first presents an extended model of typology, whereby the type not only prefigures the antitype but also enfigures it, providing the reader with a novel conceptual paradigm through which to understand a particular supernatural reality. The paper then turns to a case study: the baptism scene (380–414), the only passage in the Cento depicting all three members of the Trinity. For each, Proba reuses passages which in the Aeneid describe female characters, hinting at a feminine typological Trinity, one which highlights often-overlooked aspects of the three Christian antitypes. In so doing, she convincingly advances her thesis that Virgil's poetic works reflect typological correspondences to the Christian narrative in a similar way to Old Testament prophecy.

Ovidian Phaeton in Dante’s Commedia: Alter Ego and Oppositio

As a major mythological source and literary model, Ovid exerts a significant influence on Dante’s mythological narratives in the Commedia. Dante’s reworking of classical narratives exemplifies Ovid’s conception of mythological figures and more. Dante’s dissolution of any doubt about the dominant role of the Divinity and his underlining of the Christian faith are out of the question. However, unlike other Christian poets who focus on the moralization of Ovid’s tales, Dante is more “faithful” to the classical originals. Dante does not, for instance, exclusively read Ovid’s tales in a way that is analogous to those who produce the ordinary didactic moralizations of Ovidian myth in this period. Moreover, having freed himself from the limits of the pervasive moralizing use of Ovid, Dante better preserves the original beauty of Ovid’s writing and also, in a certain sense, its compassion for humans.

Some Results on the Positions and Attitudes of Christian Poets in the Islamic Society in the Umayyad Period

Gayr-i müslimler, Müslüman yönetimle ilişkileri bağlamında genel olarak üç sınıfa ayrılmaktadırlar: Müslümanların savaş durumunda olduğu bir devletin vatandaşı durumundaki gayr-i müslimler, başka bir devletin vatandaşı olmakla birlikte, emân yoluyla bir süreliğine İslâm toplumunda bulunan gayr-i müslimler, Müslüman bir devletin vatandaşı olarak yaşayan ve zimmî olarak adlandırılan gayr-i müslimler. Hz. Peygamber ve Hulefâ-yi Râşidîn dönemindeki uygulamalar istikametinde gayr-i müslimlerle ilişkiler hususunda ortaya çıkan ilkeyi, İslâm’ın yüceliği ve dünya barışı şeklinde özetlemek mümkündür. Buna göre Müslüman bir yönetimin toplumsal ilişkilerde takip edeceği yöntem, İslâm’ın saygınlığından ödün vermemekle, dünyada barış ve huzurun sağlanmasına yönelik faaliyetleri dengeli şekilde yürütmek olmalıdır. Nitekim Hz. Peygamber, ibadet alanında Hıristiyanların özgürlüğüne dikkat etmekle birlikte onların, İslâmî ilkelere aykırı ve sosyal düzeni bozmaya yönelik faaliyetler yürütmelerine tolerans göstermemiştir. Hulefâ-yi Râşidîn de Hz. Peygamber’in uygulamalarına sıkı sıkıya bağlı kalmıştır. Emevîler dönemi, zimmîlerle ilişkiler anlamında bir kırılma noktası olmuştur. Zira Hz. Ali’ye karşı giriştiği hilafet mücadelesinin ardından gelişen süreçte meşruiyet ve toplumsal destek noktasında büyük sorun yaşayan Emevî idaresi, muhalefet karşısında destek sadedinde Hıristiyan unsurlardan da istifade etme yoluna gitmiştir. Ancak İslâmî ilkelerde hassasiyet gösteren Ömer b. Abdülazîz’i bundan hariç tutmak gerekmektedir. Genel itibariyle Emevîler döneminde İslâm toplumunda zimmî statüsünde yaşayan gayr-i müslimler hayatın birçok alanında olduğu gibi edebiyat alanında da önemli bir varlık göstermişlerdir. Emevîler dönemi şairleri, orijin olarak Arap kabilelerine mensupturlar. Bunlar arasında özellikle Hıristiyan-Arap şairlerin siyaset alanında daha etkin oldukları ve Emevî hanedanının propaganda görevlisi gibi çalıştıkları görülmektedir. Emevî dönemi şiiri ağırlıklı olarak, asabiyete dayalı hizip siyaseti üzerine olmuştur. Bu bağlamda siyasî şiir, Emevî hanedanı aleyhtarı olan grupların şairleri ile rakipleri arasındaki çekişmeleri ifade etmektedir. Emevîler, baskı sistemi yürüttüklerinden dolayı kendilerini öven Hıristiyan şairlerin propagandalarına ihtiyaç duymuşlar ve onları gözetmişlerdir. Dolayısıyla Emevî halifeleri, muhalif kesimleri kendilerine meylettirmek ve bazen de kendi adlarına onlara cevap verdirtmek için şairlere aşırı değer vermişler ve ikramda bulunmuşlardır. Hıristiyan şairler her zaman siyasî amaçlı şiir söylememekteydi. Zira menfaat ve makam hırsı da şiir söyleme gerekçelerinden biriydi. Hıristiyan şairlerden üçüncü bir grup ise sadece duygularını ifade etmek amacıyla şiir söylemiştir. Onların şiirlerinin teması genellikle içki olmuştur. Emevîler döneminde farklı kabilelere mensup Hıristiyan şairler bulunmakla birlikte Benî Tağlib kabilesinin bu hususta ön planda olduğu dikkat çekmektedir. Zira Hıristiyan şairlerin çoğunluğu bu kabileye mensuptur. Benî Tağlib kabilesinin ve Emevîler’in en meşhur şairi Ahtal’dır. Ahtal, Emevîlerin resmî devlet şairidir. Benî Tağlib kabilesine mensup önde gelen diğer şairler ise Aʻşâ Tağlibî ve Şemʻal et-Tağlibî’dir. Ayrıca Emevîler döneminin diğer kabilelere mensup Hıristiyan şairleri arasında; Ebû Zübeyd et-Taî, Ebû Kâbûs, Huneyn el-Hîrî, Ebû Kâbûs, el-Kâsım b. et-Tavîl el-İbâdî ve Cevvâs b. Kaʻtal gibi isimler de bulunmaktadır. Emevîler dönemindeki Hıristiyan olup olmadığı konusunda tereddüt edilen şairler de bulunmaktadır. Bu şairlerin önde gelenleri ise; Mûsâ b. Câbir, Kutâmî, Kâʻb b. Cuayl, Nâbiğa Benî Şeybân, Accâc b. Ruʻbe, Üdeyl b. el-Ferh ve Hüdbe b. el-Haşram’dır. Ancak bu şairlerin genellikle önceleri Hıristiyan iken sonradan Müslüman oldukları kanaati ağır basmaktadır. Sonuç itibariyle; Emevîler dönemindeki Hıristiyan şairleri, maksatları bakımından üç grupta özetlemek mümkündür: Emevî hanedanının menfaatleri doğrultusunda siyasî temalı şiirler söyleyerek onların propagandasını yapanlar, şahsî menfaatler elde etmek amacıyla Emevî hanedanının hoşnutluğunu elde etmek için şiir söyleyenler, edebî zevk olarak yalnızca hislerini ifade etmek gayesiyle şiir söyleyenler.

Падение рыцаря: персонификация Гордыни в южнофранцузской агиографии и иконографии XI–XII веков

The paper explores the dismounted knight as the personification of Pride in the context of Southern French art and hagiography of the 11th–12th centuries. This motif is based on the Psychomachia, the Late Antique allegorical poem by a 4th-century Christian poet Prudentius that visualizes a series of combats between Virtues and Vice. The key point in the sequence is the battle between Humility and mounted Pride culminating in the fall of the latter into the pit. The metaphor of Pride brought low literally visualized as the fall of a proud she-warrior from her steed resonates in the literature of the 11th–12th century. In the society where the image of an armed horseman is strongly associated with a member of the secular elite, the classical motif acquires a new social dimension. The Southern French hagiography of the 11th – early 12th century adapts it to the stories of punishment and derision of violent knights. Since the late 11th century allegorical figures of Virtues and Vices pass from the manuscript pages of illuminated treatises to the sculpted and painted decor of Romanesque churches. The Prudentius’ armed and armored she-warriors grow progressively abstract in this novel visual space. Following this development, Pride is the only vice to show little change in the way it is visualized. Within the iconographic programs of some church spaces mostly oriented towards constructing a social model using hagiographical topoi, Pride comes to be the only vice to keep her military attributes. Still personified as the dismounted cavalier, Pride becomes part of the universal eschatological perspective of the Last Judgment within the carved portal of the basilica of Sainte-Foy de Conques. The image has a local parallel in the episode of a knight’s fatal fall in the 11th century Book of Miracles of Saint Foy, with recent events remodeled on the episode of Prudentius’ learned poem. Thus, the image of a dismounted knight comes to stay in the visual allegory of the Middle Ages as an articulation of the aristocratic vice, one of the military elite. Starting as a mere episode in the allegorical combat of Virtues and Vices, the motif of Pride’s fall is shown to crystallize into a self-sufficient iconographic formula and literary topos.

Ветхозаветные образы в великом каноне Андрея Критского и в «Книге скорбных песнопений» Григора Нарекаци

The Great Canon, composed in the early 8th century by St. Andrew, the archbishop of Gortyna in Crete, became an integral part of the Great Lent services of the Orthodox Church and thus acquired the status of the main penitential hymnographic work. It abounds with examples from the Old and New Testaments: St. Andrew describes persons and events from biblical history, starting from the creation of the first man, and uses them to reflect the moral state of man, deriving from their actions both warnings and reproofs, as well as examples of hope and trust in the mercy of the Creator. The mystical poem The Book of Lamentations, written by the Armenian hymnographer Grigor, a monk and vardapet of the Narek monastery, in the very first years of the 11th century (presumably in 1002), also sets the incitement of a repentant mood in the soul of the reader together with contrition for sins as one of its aims, in which it intersects very closely with the Great Canon. A certain similarity in the approach to the use of biblical figured between these two penitential works, although belonging to different Christian traditions, had been noted by those few researchers who were familiar with both the Great Canon and The Book of Lamentations, but a closer study of this similarity – or, on the contrary, differences in the approach of the authors – has not yet been undertaken. This paper will attempt to compare the exegetical principles of these great Christian poets on the examples taken from the Old Testament.

Presence in the distance: the classical and the Biblical tradition in Prudentius’s Cathemerinon 5 and 9

In this paper two poetological passages from Prudentius’ Cathemerinon liber are analysed from the perspective of the idea of “presence in the distance”; in other words, Prudentius’ lyrical forebears, who belong to both the Biblical and the classical tradition, harmonise in those poetical claims of the Christian hymnodist; Prudentius speaks with their voice and even proclaims to fulfil them. In Cath. 5 he recalls the Song of Moses from Exodus 15 by almost paraphrasing it and, at the same time, he reuses fragments from Horace’s ode 4,5, while alluding to its main themes. In the opening stanzas of Cath. 9, Prudentius reveals his models by referring first to Horace’s Odes, then by openly mentioning David the psalmist, and he portrays himself as the heir and at the same time as the fulfilment of both literary forerunners. Further examples from Cath. 6 and from the Contra Symmachum illustrate how Prudentius does not present the act of reusing ancient fragments as contradictory, although they originally conveyed a pagan message. Thanks to the Christian poet, the past finds a new vitality.

Milton in China

Milton in China

열반 적정과 엘리엇의 『네 사중주』

Four Quartets expresses suffering as the universal condition of human beings and seeks a way to escape from it through the theme of time. By mixing individual sensibility and intelligence with thoughts of Christianity, Buddhism, and Hinduism, the poem atriculates the themes in phrases and sentences with various connotative and contradictory meanings. Typical examples include phrases such as “The first world”, “Rose garden”, “Midwinter spring”, “Zero summer”, “A white light still and moving”, and a sentence “At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless; / Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is, / But neither arrest nor movement.” These connotative and contradictory meanings would be hard to understand by common readers. Foregrounding Nirvana Samatha in Buddhism as a main subject of Four Quartet, this article delves into the sub-themes such as time(world of phenomenon), eternity, and salvation(redeption). As a Christian poet, Eliot presents Christ/God as the redeemer of humanity in diverse and, even, contradictory ways in the poem. The Lord becomes the end point toward which sufferings human being strive to save themselves, and the archytype of human redemption. Ways to go toward the Lord include repentance, prayer, emptying, humility, and practicing love. Buddhism’s nirvana is much similar to this, but seems a little different from Christianity in the method of seeking. Nirvana is based on internal inquiry. But Both of them are ultimately equal in that they are based on salvation for the eternal happiness of mankind. The ending of the poem, where a fire and a rose become one, visually signifies that humanity can be redeemed by empting herself and loving each other genuinely, and exemplies a poetic expression that unites the religious redemption of the East and the West.

Suleiman of Gazza on the Ecumenical Councils

The article discusses the ideas about the history and deeds of the Ecumenical Councils of the Melkite writer of the 10th–11th centuries Suleiman, Bishop of Gaza, the first Arabic-speaking Christian poet and author of a number of theological and philosophical treatises. Although Suleiman was not a historian, he nonetheless wrote two noteworthy texts on the history of the Ecumenical Councils. According to a number of formal criteria, these texts may well be attributed to “the synopsis of the Councils” genre, which was very popular in Byzantium and was widely used in Byzantine doctrinal and catechetical literature. At the same time, this genre was not in demand in Melkite literature, and the Bishop of Gaza was actually the only Arabic-speaking Melkite writer who created works in “the synopsis of the Councils” genre, which was widely used in Byzantine doctrinal and catechetical literature. The author notes that, unlike most Melkite writers of the 8th–13th centuries (St John of Damascus, Theodore Abu Qurrah, Agapius of Manbij, Macarius of Sinai), who had quite adequate ideas about the history of the Ecumenical Councils and their deeds, Suleiman in his treatises makes many mistakes, both purely historical and concerning the theological essence of some heresies condemned by the Councils. The article attempts to establish the reasons for the mistakes made by Suleiman of Gazza and find logical explanations for some of them. The author comes to the conclusion that Suleiman’s knowledge of Church history cannot be considered satisfactory. Because of this, it is absolutely impossible to call the Bishop of Gazza a writer who knew the history of the Church well, as some researchers do.

Из поэтического наследия Сулеймана, епископа Газского (X–XI вв.)

The publication presents a commented interlinear and literary translation of two qasidas (poems) from the Divan (collection) of the first known Arab Christian poet – Sulayman al-Ghazzi, bishop of Gaza in Palestine (Xth-XIth cent.). His poetic work is the earliest attempt at using the metrical and stylistic tools of classical Arabic poetry for purely Christian subjects. The Divan also contains multiple autobiographical data and important historical evidence of Christian persecution under the Fatimid caliph al-Hakim, including the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Despite their unique significance, very few of Sulayman’s poems have been translated into a modern language. The two selected qasidas belong to the opposite traditional genres of Arabic poetry – reproach and praise. In the first one the Jews who rejected Christ are targeted; the other one is focused on righteous Christians and their liturgy. In addition, the first qasida is rich in biblical allusions and quotations, loosely reworked by the author in a poetic vein, and the second one gives a detailed description of the divine service and is therefore a valuable evidence of the liturgical life of Palestinian Christians in Sulayman’s era.

„Militia saeculi“ и „militia christi“ в двете писма на Павлин от Нола († 431) до Криспиниан

There are in the epistolary corpus of the great Latin Christian poet and writer of the 5th century Paulinus of Nola († 431) two letters to a soldier whose name is Crispinianus, which reveal the author’s outlook on military service (militia). This paper discusses the language and style of those letters. It also seeks out the arguments against military service and examines the way they are constructed. According to Paulinus, militia saeculi is not compatible with a fulfilling Christian life. The last section of the article examines the character, specifications and goals of the Christian alternative of military work: the work for Christ, also referred to as militia – militia Christi.

Converting Byron in Victorian Devotional Poetry Collections

This essay examines the variety of religious remediations of Byron’s poetry in the Victorian period, arguing that the poet’s specialized inclusion in Victorian devotional poetry anthologies signals the logic and politics of evangelical Christianity. Carefully anthologized selections of Childe Harolde’s Pilgrimage and Hebrew Melodies in devotional poetry collections like The Pious Minstrel (1831), Beauties of Modern Sacred Poetry (1862), and The Sunday Book of Poetry (1864) allowed publishers, editors, and readers to claim Byron as either a converted, saved Christian poet or as a lost soul who occasionally expressed the pious insights of someone on the brink of conversion. Byron’s posthumous reception in Victorian evangelical discourse is an understudied phenomenon that parallels other forms of Victorian Byromania that attempt to “convert” the poet and his works. I argue that the remediation and circulation of Byron’s anthologized devotional poetry offers insights into Victorian conceptions of Christian living, prayer, devotion, and piety.

“Mindful God and One Man’s Daring”: The Christian-Pagan Conflict of Beowulf

Composed by an anonymous Christian poet between the seventh and the ninth century, <em>Beowulf </em>is an Anglo-Saxon epic poem that records the life of the Geat hero, Beowulf and his slaying of three terrible monsters, Grendel, Grendel’s Mother, and a dragon. Despite the story’s original pagan origin, this essay analyzes the extent to which the Christian faith of its poet influences the outcome of these slayings and the overall themes of the poem. An analysis of the characters of Grendel’s Mother and the dragon in particular presents strong parallels between the culture of the Anglo-Saxons and their monsters. Viewed in context of the poet’s Christian faith, these parallels call into question key pillars of the Anglo-Saxon way of life, including their own heroic code. Ultimately, <em>Beowulf </em>extolls the triumph of Christian morality over paganism and encourages reflection on how its morals might be applied to the present day.

Naming of the Bones by John F. Deane

Reviewed by: Naming of the Bones by John F. Deane Fred Dings John F. Deane Naming of the Bones Manchester, UK. Carcanet Press. 2022. 152 pages. SECULAR ATHEISTS OR adherents to faiths other than Christianity who admire fine poetry should not avoid reading John F. Deane's new book, Naming of the Bones—because its content is overtly concerned with Christian subjects and issues of faith—any more than they would fail to admire the art of Leonardo da Vinci in The Last Supper or The Annunciation. The best passages in this 152-page book rise to the highest levels of poetic craft and persuasion. The title of the book forecasts its architecture and serves also as a multifaceted metaphor for the subjects of the poems. "Bones" are, of course, the most enduring parts of our physical being and the core elements of our supporting structure; they also frequently serve as relics, in this case in early Christianity. Metaphorically, "naming the bones" is the poet's process of identifying and naming the key "old bones" of the Celtic and Anglo-Saxon Christian tradition (his tradition), the "old bones" of his Christian poet precursors (Irish and English), the "bones" of his own personal history (experiential and familial), and the "bones" of his Christian belief. Many of the poems in the first portion of this book locate themselves in island monasteries and vicinities, especially those of Iona, Lindisfarne, and Inishmurray, in the times of Aidan, Cuthbert, and Colman, going as far back, of course, as the sixth century. These early figures and places are indeed the old indispensable bones of a tradition that even survived Viking invasions to persist in present times. Deane is not engaged in a history lesson here; there is nothing abstracted or merely "informational" about these poems. They are deeply personal quests to engage—imaginatively, poetically, and spiritually—the roots of his present being, his incarnate being, and "to scavenge here for understanding." In the poem "Old Bones," we read: "the black rocks / slippery with weed and sea-wet. Herring gulls barked / like guarddogs and a kestrel, / fast as a prayer, flew by. I scaled a rock-trail through thistles / where the testy ghosts // wished to be left in peace. To this abandonment, friars came / centuries after the Christ, to forge / salvation, built rock altars, beehive cells, stone churches, / piled up their cursing stones to keep / women and friends at bay." There is something of an enforced solitude and discomfort in such a quest, which the poet recognizes and shares: "thunder-light on the sea stack, a monk / in tears, huddled under the cold and the coming dark." Implicit here is a belief that difficulty must be sought and endured. In a poem entitled "Triple H," Deane identifies three of his Christian poetic "bones": Gerard Manley Hopkins, George Herbert, and Seamus Heaney. Of them he writes: "Hopkins in his long unglamorous suffering, / small snappy man in a misery of muscled language; // Herbert, his consciousness of dustworth, / his tentative but eager treaty of love; // and Heaney, witness to the gracefulness of the frames / of dailiness, enamoured of the possible, the worth // of next-door otherness and the allsorts savouring of words: / these, O God, your dead, your un-mortals." Common to all is a valuing of humility and love, but in Heaney also a recognition of the extraordinariness of the ordinary. Deane also spends significant time naming the bones of his spiritual journey, including family members who influenced his spiritual development and stations of experience. One particularly moving poem is part 6 of "Grandfather Ted / John Connors" in the form of a letter from his grandfather. In this poem, the grandfather speaks of a time he came to comfort the poet as a young boy who was experiencing a nightmare and crying out in his sleep, but the grandfather found that he himself was comforted. He had held the boy's "small, sweet-smelling body" against his own "bruised, old-century self" until he slept, but found "I did not want to lay you down, your being blessing mine. And I felt safe, at last, rescued by an access of love, and the world turned, and I let go...

구원자 혹은 폭군: 남북한 『실낙원』 번역서의 God 비교 연구

This study aims to compare the translated versions of John Milton’s Paradise Lost published in South Korea and North Korea, specifically examining representations of God in both versions. Using Mona Baker’s narrative reframing theory, this study analyzes varying presentations of God’s identity, power, and intention. The analysis shows that the South and the North Korean translated versions have been reframed drastically differently through selective appropriation and labelling. On the one hand, the South Korean translation reframes the text as a religious poem and the author as a devout Christian poet. In the preface of this version of Milton’s text, God is reframed as a merciful and generous savior. The main body of the text positively reframes narratives about God. In comparison, the North Korean version reframes Milton’s poem as a political text, and the author as an anti-feudalist revolutionary. In the preface of the North Korean version, God is reframed as a merciless tyrant and an absolute autocrat. In the main body, the North Korean version bypasses positive narratives about God and removes the Christian narrative this paper argues is found within the source text. This paper reads such translating processes as an ideological reflection of the political imperatives of a North Korean government rejecting and suppressing the Christian belief system.

ELEGIES FOR THE PROPHET'S FAMILY BY CONTEMPORARY LEBANESE CHRISTIAN POETS

The study discusses elegiac poetry on the Prophet's family composed by Lebanese poets belonging to the Christian community there. We chose a selection of writings by four contemporary Christian poets: Joseph al-Hāshim, Paul Salāma, Raymond Qasīs and Joseph al-Ḥarb. The study opens with a discussion of the meaning of elegies as a human, social and individual poetic object, that has been cultivated by poets since pre-Islamic times. Next, the study discusses the reason why the Prophet's family has been the subject of so many elegies, namely the important position this family occupied among poets. Subsequently we discuss why Christian poets in Lebanon have composed numerous elegies for members of the Prophet's family, especially ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib and his son al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī, namely the fact that elegies constitute a unique human phenomenon that is in keeping with divine teachings, especially concerning the Prophet's family. The study uses both descriptive and analytic methods.

«Созерцавший Агнца Божия»: Джупитер Хэммон – первый чернокожий христианский поэт Америки

The role of Christianity as a factor that exerted a decisive influence over African American social and cultural history, is being debated time and again in the course of African American studies. The ambivalent attitude of the 18th –19th century Christian preachers and missionaries to slavery, egalitarian tendencies that combined with the idea of humility and resignation, led to contradictions and controversy in the evaluation of the role Christianity played in Afroamerica. The case of Jupiter Hammon (1711 –1806?), a preacher and the first Black Christian poet in America, illustrates the emergence of the basic topoi in the pre-war Blackamerican literary tradition: conversion to Christianity and literacy (enculturation) as two essential conditions for the acknowledgement of Black humanity and ability to integrate into the New World civilization. Jupiter Hammon refused to struggle against slavery; paradoxically, however, his work is an inherent part of both African American religious and cultural history and the New England Christian thought, that engendered Abolitionism and its most famous book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, or Life among the Lowly (1852), based on the concept of the “religious genius” of the African and the “Black redemption” of the greatest American vice, slavery.

The Wind’s Prayer, the World’s Sabbath: Spirit and Place in Lance Henson and Wendell Berry

Although a vast body of poetry celebrates the natural world and addresses issues concerning the environment, it can be overlooked in the discourses of environmental activism. In this paper, we seek to demonstrate the unique contributions that poetry makes to a thoughtful, and in this case, theological, engagement with our present environmental crises. Here, we create a conversation between two poets of two different religious traditions. Cheyenne poet Lance Henson’s poem “we are a people” reimagines humanity’s self-conception in light of earthly interconnectedness from the perspective of his own Native American spiritual sensibilities. Christian poet Wendell Berry’s poem “Sabbaths IV” (1983) relocates our understanding of Sabbath beyond its liturgical designations and practices, asking us to attend to “the true world’s Sabbath”. We offer close readings of these two poems that mark the distinctions that emerge from and interact with their respective theological visions, but also where they find common ground. Through this work of reading literature theologically, we argue that these poems both refine our attentiveness to the earth as the site of religious import and consequence, and call upon readers to enact other ways of being in the world amidst the climate catastrophe that are inspired by faith and spirituality.

Venationes en la poesía latina tardoimperial. El poder de la arena y su final

This article analyzes various passages from Claudian’s and Gorippus’s political poems (Claud., Ruf., 2; Theod.; Stil., 3; VI Hon.; Goripp., Laud. Iust. Min., 3) which describe hunting games in the Roman arena (venationes) and have communicative aims: they either praise officeholders (consuls, generals, and emperors), or they criticize their opponents. This theme plays a fundamental role in early imperial poetry. But while early imperial poets (Calpurnius, Statius, Martial, and Juvenal) convey their message of praise or invective with briefer passages, Claudian and Gorippus present concatenated scenes, with the effect of increasingly persuading and impressing the reader. The role of the venatorial subject in Christian poets such as Prudentius (Prud., Ham.; c. Symm.) will be treated as well. Finally, this essay aims to establish when venationes are last attested in (late) Roman poetry.