The Gospels in Our Image: An Anthology of Twentieth-Century Poetry Based on Biblical Texts - Hardcover

Curzon, David

  • 4.15 out of 5 stars
    13 ratings by Goodreads
 
9780151001613: The Gospels in Our Image: An Anthology of Twentieth-Century Poetry Based on Biblical Texts

Synopsis

This unique anthology brings together over 160 poems directly inspired by the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Readers will be surprised that such world rand authors as Yeats, Rilke, Borges, Eliot, Plath, Milosz, Lawrence, Pasternak, Celan, Akhmatova, Auden, and Wilbur are incisive biblical commentators as well. The poems, which range in tone from playful to confrontational and from ironic to sublime, are set alongside the biblical passages that inspired them. The Annunciation, the Nativity, the Temptations in the Wilderness, the Sermon on the Mount, the Parables, the Last Supper, the Crucifixion and Resurrection, are just a few of the narratives that have captured these writers' imaginations. In revisting 2000 year old texts with a twentieth-century sensibility, the poets here bring meanin to them, and offer us a renewed appreciation of their importance.

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About the Author

David Curzon is the author of books of poetry and editor of two anthologies. He is a contributing editor for The Forward magazine and The Jerusalem Review.

Reviews

Curzon (Modern Poems on the Bible, LJ 11/15/93) has gathered a rather impressive collection of 20th-century poetry to demonstrate the pervasiveness of the Gospel stories. He has selected poems that retell a particular Gospel story or parable rather than merely reflecting on a thematic structure of the Gospels. The biblical passage is printed side by side with the poem. For example, Matthew 2:1-2 (the Story of the Magi) is paired with, among others, T.S. Eliot's "Journey of the Magi," James Dickey's "The Magus," and Sylvia Plath's "Magi." Curzon shows how Gospel narratives ranging from the Annunciation to the Resurrection have deeply influenced both the form and the content of modern poetry from Yeats to Gabriela Mistral. Highly recommended.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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