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Chapters into Verse book cover
Chapters into Verse
Poetry in English Inspired by the Bible 2-Volume Set
1993
First Published
3.94
Average Rating
728
Number of Pages

Drawing a unique map of the history of English poetry, Chapters Into Verse surveys and defines the literary legacy of the Scriptures from the fourteenth century to the present. Arranged in scriptural order from Genesis to Revelation, the book presents each poem alongside the biblical passage that inspired it. Thus readers can conveniently witness the various ways sacred text has sparked the imagination of poets throughout the ages. The editors have included poems by virtually all the prominent religious poets—among them John Donne, George Herbert, Henry Vaughan, Edward Taylor, and Gerard Manley Hopkins. Included, too, are devotional and visionary works from a wide range of vintage poets—Robert Burns, William Blake, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Christina Rossetti, Alfred Tennyson, and Robert Browning. Proving that the Bible is just as powerful a source of inspiration today as it was in the past, the collection also assembles a mixed congregation of modern and contemporary poets, such as Dylan Thomas, Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams, Countee Cullen, e.e. cummings, William Butler Yeats, Laura (Riding) Jackson, A.D. Hope, Denise Levertov, and Philip Levine. Of enduring interest to readers of both scripture and literature, this anthology illuminates key passages of the Old and New Testament. In selection after selection, readers will encounter an astonishing variety of religious experiences, as a host of poets from many eras and many backgrounds respond to Holy Scripture profoundly and imaginatively.

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Author

Robert Atwan
Author · 19 books
Robert Atwan has been the series editor of The Best American Essays since its inception in 1986. He has edited numerous literary anthologies and written essays and reviews for periodicals nationwide.
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Chapters into Verse