Fanny Howe is a wonderful poet, novelist, and essayist. You can learn more about her from the Poetry Foundation. I’ve been reading some of her insights into faith and poetry in her short interview “Footsteps Over Ground” and her longer work The Wedding Dress. I’m amazed by the way she articulates the meaning of and need for … More The Liturgical Wisdom of Fanny Howe
We’ve have another busy year! Our daughter is walking and talking and…scattering her toy dinosaurs all over the house… And since last summer, I’ve been working on my dissertation, looking at the ways Victorians relate to the medieval past through liturgy. Whether Anglicans, dissenters, or agnostics, they’re using tons of liturgical allusions. And I turned … More Year in Review – 2018
With Advent starting and the Christmas season following it, it’s time to think about all the overlap between literature and liturgy. Sometimes a liturgy will take central place in a novel, such as the baptism in Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles or the wedding at the end of any marriage plot. Many liturgies themselves are a collection … More A Literary Kalendar for December
Kalenderes enlumined been they That in this world been lighted with thy name – Chaucer’s “Priere a Nostre Dame” Chaucer can be hard to pin down. At many points, we can ask ourselves “Is he serious?” or “Is this all an elaborate parody?” At other, darker times we may question if he really was “evere … More Chaucer’s Almighty and al Merceable Queene
Today is Christina Rossetti’s feast day! Surprised that the poet has a feast day? Me too! But I’m happy to have a day when I have an excuse to read Goblin Market and and listen to the hymns and carols that come from her poetry. Such a high poetic feast day also requires commiserating together … More The Feast Day of Christina Rossetti
One of the most beautiful descriptions of a liturgy I’ve ever read comes from George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda. In this moment, the titular character has his first experience of Jewish worship, having opted for the Spanish-Hebrew liturgy rather than the vernacular. The liturgical moment that Deronda experiences is actually Yom Kippur, but I think the … More “Happy the Eye That Saw Our Temple”: Liturgy in Daniel Deronda
There is so much overlap between literature and liturgy. Sometimes a liturgy will take central place in a novel, such as the baptism in Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles or the wedding at the end of any marriage plot. Many liturgies themselves are a collection of literary genres, ranging from myth to poetry to exhortation, blended with … More A Literary Kalendar
Throughout his short life, Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote occasional poems. Some were late apologies for missing a sister’s birthday. Others were designed to be presented to his Jesuit community, such as a playful description of a superior. And many were written to commemorate the liturgical season. During the Lent of 1866, he wrote the poem, … More Beginning Lent with Father Gerard’s “Nondum”
We’ve have quite a busy year! Our daughter, Eleanor, was born in March. I taught a class on fairy tales, and came away from it thinking Where the Wild Things Are is more genius than I ever realized (more on that in a later post). And I finished my comprehensive exams, preparing to teach in classes on … More Year in Review
How religious were the Victorians? If we focus only on the canonical poets, then maybe not so much. Alfred Tennyson finds himself staring at the paradox of a divinely-created nature that is “red in tooth and claw” and a faith that suggests we believe what “we cannot prove” (In Memoriam 56.15, Prologue line 4). Thomas Hardy … More Some Victorian Advent Reading
The Golden Echo 