The Poets' Book of Psalms: The Complete Psalter As Rendered by Twenty-Five Poets from the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Centuries

Bringing together the brightest poetic musings over the Bible's richest poetry, this book is a modern alternative to existing literal translations of the Bible's psalms. All of the interpretations speak to the three religions that hold the Bible sacred--Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Poets include Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Burns, John Milton, and John Donne.

No other book of the Hebrew Bible is more popular or, by poets' lights, less satisfactorily rendered by standard English translations than Psalms. Oh, the King James Version of the Twenty-third is unassailable, but poets have been striving to better their Bibles' prosiness since even before the KJV. Editor Wieder selects from five centuries of alternative versions to produce a complete Psalms of considerable historic and aesthetic as well as religious significance. Many of the greatest names in British poetry--Wyatt, the Elizabethan songwriter Campion, Herbert, Milton, Smart, Burns, Coleridge--are represented, and students of women writers will note that, as far as the Psalms are concerned, where Philip Sidney appears, his sister, Mary, who completed his project to paraphrase all the Psalms, does, too, much to her credit. Wieder's introduction is abrupt to the point of rudeness, and the few psalm versions of his own that he includes are of comparatively lesser stature, but with the entire KJV Psalms appended for good measure, this is a book no self-respecting English or Christian literature collection should forgo. Ray Olson