Marian Poem-Prayers in the Modern Age - (New Directions in Religion and Literature) by Jean Ward (Hardcover)

About the Book

Exploring a range of twentieth and twenty-first century Marian prayer-poetry - prayer poems directed to or involving Mary - by poets such as T. S. Eliot, David Jones, Geoffrey Hill, Elizabeth Jennings, Hilary Davies and Rowan Williams, this book traces its resurgence from the late nineteenth-century to the present day.

Book Synopsis

This book explores a range of twentieth and twenty-first century poem-prayers directed to or involving Mary. In readings of works by T. S. Eliot, David Jones, Geoffrey Hill, Elizabeth Jennings, Hilary Davies, Rowan Williams and others, Ward traces the resurgence of interest in Mary from the late nineteenth century to the present day.

By the early twentieth century, the once widespread and fervent cult of the Virgin Mary had for more than three hundred years been largely absent from England's religious life. Similarly, the figure of Mary had almost vanished from English poetry, only to return, gradually, as Marian devotion began to revive in the nineteenth century.

The perception of this devotion as somehow un-English, dominant since the Reformation, presented a challenge to poets engaged with the Marian theme in the modern day. Marian Poem-Prayers in the Modern Age examines how male and female poets from both Roman Catholic and Anglican backgrounds responded to this situation. The book also argues that the figure of Mary is a type of John Henry Newman's category of "real assent" commitment that is not merely intellectual, but involves the totality of a person's being in relation to God.

Review Quotes

"That there are poems which are also prayers has long been known. That the Virgin Mary has been the focus of so many poems in the British Isles has perhaps not been properly appreciated until now. Jean Ward's beautiful study of Marian poems by writers as distinct as T. S. Eliot and R. S. Thomas, Elizabeth Jennings and Geoffrey Hill, along with an outlier such as Thom Gunn, is an eloquent and much-needed contribution to the study of religion and literature." --Kevin Hart, Jo Rae Wright University Distinguished Professor in the School of Divinity, Duke University, USA

"Jean Ward has written an insightful study of the rise and fall-and the rise again-of Marian devotion and its poetic production in England. Ward assesses the demise of Mary in Reformation theological poetics, and her re-emergence in some twentieth century English poets, suggesting a theological unease about Mary's place in modern religious representation, from Anglicans like W.H. Auden and T.S. Eliot, to Catholic converts like David Jones, Sebastian Barker and Hilary Davies, to the prominent cradle Catholic, Elizabeth Jennings. Ward offers readers a way to chart Marian poetry in English writers through the centuries." --Mark Bosco, S.J., Georgetown University, USA

About the Author

Jean Ward is Professor of Literary Studies in English at Gdansk University, Poland.