In this collection of twelve essays, the editors attempt to define the poet as prophet in Western literature and to select the general attributes of prophetic writing. The essays focus, in the main, on the prophetic tradition in the English-speaking world, as well as on a sufficient number of writers outside that tradition, to prove that all prophetic writing shares common features.

Martz (English, emeritus, Yale) argues that the prophetic tradition, with its focus on the evils of the present, as well as the possibilities of redemption should be understood as an integral component of both the texture and contents of works by such modernist poets as Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, T. S. Eliot and others. Biblical prophecy, he asserts, is an important precedent for the tone and subject matter of these poets' works. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

This 1952 book is an inquiry into the relations in origin between literature and inspiration, based on a study of the practices of seers in modern communities where oral literature sill survives, and of the records of primitive poetry in the West and North. Mrs Chadwick discusses the universal reverence accorded to poets, musicians, seers, or prophets, the training they underwent, the methods of ecstasy, and the remarkable similarities of their messages in remote and different parts of the world.

The chantry movement in late medieval England is situated in this context, and leads to a demonstration of the movement's associations with the highly-wrought poem Pearl and its companion poems; the book analyses Pearl as medieval architecture, offering fresh perspectives on its elaborate construction and historical context."--BOOK JACKET.

Addresses the relationship between the language of ritual and poetic language

Collection of newly-commissioned essays tracing cutting-edge developments in children's literature research.