Christian and Catholic Poets?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Writer_for_God
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
W

Writer_for_God

Guest
Hi everyone,
I have been wanting to study some poetry for a long time, but haven’t figured out whose work to read. I would like to study some good Catholic and Christian poetry in general and wanted to ask for suggestions of good poets and poems to read. I could also use any help in how to approach the study and appreciation of poetry, whether Christian or otherwise. Do you have any suggestions for poets to read and also for maybe books that help understand and study poetry? Thanks for any recommendations or advice.
God bless you all. Amen.
 
Gerard Manley Hopkins is the first one to come to mind. A Jesuit and a poet.
 
Two of the great WWI English poets, Joyce Kilmer and Siegfried Sassoon, were both converts to Catholicism.

John Donne wussed out and converted to Anglicanism from Catholicism after seeing his family members undergo hardships, including prison and death, for being Catholic. Despite this, he is still a great poet and one of my all-time favorites, although I absolutely hated the way our high school English classes would analyze every word in his works, and I preferred to just read them on my own.
 
For suggestions of poets: In addition to Donne, my other favorite poet was always William Blake. He was not a Catholic though and was pretty much anti-all religions.

I also enjoy Patti Smith poems, although they are not everyone’s taste.
 
Last edited:
G.K. Chesterton. He wrote on every topic and genre that exists, including poetry, which was his favorite subject.
 
@Writer_for_God.—Some people, myself included, don’t really have an ear for poetry at all, but can enjoy narrative verse. Among the classics of the genre I would pick out these three, all having a bearing on Catholicism in one way or another.

Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. If you’re not prepared to wade through his Middle English with its “nathelees” and “cherlysh wreccednesse,” there are good translations into Modern English. But if you are, the Riverside Chaucer is reputed to be the best one-volume edition.

Dante’s Divine Comedy, preferably in the Dorothy L. Sayers translation, for two reasons. First, the translation itself, following Dante’s meter and rhyming scheme as closely as anyone could reasonably expect, is as jaunty and entertaining as the original. Dante in verse is much more fun than Dante in prose. Second, Sayers’ notes give you as much background as you need to make sense of what’s going on, without overdoing it. Not too short and not too long.

Browning’s The Ring and the Book is a novel in verse, recreating a real-life murder case in the Papal State in the 1690s. Browning builds up a three-dimensional picture by presenting the facts from the point of view of nine different characters, including the murderer, the victim on her deathbed (she died from her wounds a few days after the attack), the defense attorney, and Pope Innocent XII, who as the head of state has to decide whether or not to uphold the death sentence.
 
Last edited:
Chesterton’s poem Lepanto is thrilling.

Gives you chills every time.
 
Last edited:
Writer_for_God said:
Catholic and Christian poetry in gen
Click to expand...
Why do you say that like Catholic and Christian are two different things?

Catholics are proto Christians, Catholicism is the full representation of Christianity.

I would argue non Catholic Christians are less Christian than Catholic Christians.
 
Last edited:
I would say the themes contained therein would be different, simply due to theology… neither is good/bad/whatever, just thematicallty and theologically different.
 
T.S. Eliot is one of my favorite poets. ‘The Four Quartets’ is pure prayer.

Who then devised the torment? Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.
We only live, only suspire
Consumed by either fire or fire.
 
Yes to T.S. Eliot! I was going to mention him but you beat me to it.

The 4 Quartets is one of his best.

W.H. Auden is another Christian (Anglican?) who often wrote on religious themes.
 
Last edited:
George Herbert is another of my favorite poets. He was a priest and a mystic. Here is ‘The Call.’

Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life :
Such a Way, as gives us breath :
Such a Truth, as ends all strife :
And such a Life, as killeth death.

Come, my Light, my Feast, my Strength :
Such a Light, as shows a feast :
Such a Feast, as mends in length :
Such a Strength, as makes his guest.

Come, my Joy, my Love, my Heart :
Such a Joy, as none can move :
Such a Love, as none can part :
Such a Heart, as joyes in love.
 
Another poet is Thomas Traherne, who was a 17th cent. clergyman. He wrote metaphysical, mystical poetry.
 
Spyridon said:
Non Catholic Christians simply do not possess the fullness of Christianity; hence, they are doctrinally less Christian than Catholics.
Click to expand...
Your branch of the church may imply that there is insufficiency in other branches. But for those Christians who do not claim such, we just shake our heads at you. Christ is all. His arms embrace us all, with no favoritism. Each of us is precious; each of us is loved without exception. I cannot imagine anything else.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top