Table Of ContentPoetry and
Revelation
ALSO AVAILABLE FROM BLOOMSBURY
Beckett’s Words, David Kleinberg-Levin
Kierkegaard’s Religious Discourses, David J. Kangas
The Ethics of Time, John Panteleimon Manoussakis
Poetry and
Revelation
For a Phenomenology of
Religious Poetry
KEVIN HART
Bloomsbury Academic
An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Bloomsbury Academic
An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
50 Bedford Square 1385 Broadway
London New York
WC1B 3DP NY 10018
UK USA
www.bloomsbury.com
BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
First published 2017
© Kevin Hart, 2017
Kevin Hart has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be
identified as Author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or
any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the
publishers.
No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining
from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or
the author.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: HB: 978-1-4725-9831-8
ePDF: 978-1-4725-9832-5
ePub: 978-1-4725-9833-2
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
Typeset by Fakenham Prepress Solutions, Fakenham, Norfolk, NR21 8NN
Printed and bound in Great Britain
For Sarah Hart
vi
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction xi
PART ONE Experience
1 Poetry and revelation: Hopkins, counter-experience, and
reductio 3
2 “For the life was manifested”: On “material spirit” in
Hopkins 21
3 Eliot’s rose-garden: Some phenomenology and theology in
“Burnt Norton” 41
PART TWO On Geoffrey Hill
4 God’s little mountains: Young Geoffrey Hill and the problem of
religious poetry 63
5 “it / is true” 77
6 Transcendence in tears 93
7 Uncommon equivocation in Geoffrey Hill 113
PART THREE Three Australian poets
8 Susannah without the cherub 125
9 Darkness and lostness: How to read a poem by Judith
Wright 141
10 “Only this”: Some phenomenology and religion in Robert
Gray 151
viii CONTENTS
PART FOUR Religio Poetæ
11 A voice answering a voice: Philippe Jaccottet and the
“Dream of God” 175
12 Eugenio Montale and “the other truth” 189
13 “La poesia è scala a dio”: On Charles Wright’s “belief beyond
belief” 205
PART FIVE Morning knowledge
14 Contemplation and concretion: Four Marian lyrics 227
15 Ambassadors and votaries of silence 243
Notes 265
Index 325
Acknowledgments
Earlier versions of some of these chapters have appeared in various
journals and edited collections. My thanks to the editors for allowing
them their first lives elsewhere: a version of Chapter 1 was published in
Pacifica: Australian Theological Studies 18 (2005): 259–80; Chapter 2 has
been revised from its initial appearance in Material Spirit, edited by Carl Good
(Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012); a version of Chapter 3 appeared in
Christianity and Literature, 64: 3 (2015); most of Chapter 4 was included
in Sacred Worlds: Religion, Literature, and the Imagination, edited by Mark
Knight and Louise Lee (Continuum, 2009), 23–36; an early version of Chapter
5 was published in Studia Phaenomenologica 8 (2008): 219–39; Chapter 6,
now recast, first appeared in Gazing through a Prism Darkly, edited by Keith
Putt (Fordham University Press, 2009), 116–38; almost all of Chapter 7 was
included in a discussion of Geoffrey Hill in Religion and the Arts 16 (2012):
563–74; a version of Chapter 8 was published in Southerly 71 (3) (2012):
76–97; Chapter 9 has been lightly revised from a talk that was included in
Imagining Australia, edited by Judith Ryan and Chris Wallace-Crabbe (Harvard
University Press, 2004), 305–19; an earlier draft of Chapter 10 appeared in
Southerly 69 (2) (2009): 17–49; Chapter 11 has been expanded from a short
piece in Verse 24 (1–3) (2007): 240–53; Chapter 12 has been revised from a
long review that appeared in Heat 14 (2000): 166–82; and Chapter 13 was
published, in a shorter version, in Religion and the Arts 8 (2) (2004): 174–99,
and has been brought up to date with the poet’s more recent works. All the
other chapters appear here for the first time. Chapter 3 was read in French
translation at a conference at the Institut Catholique de Paris in February,
2012, and Chapter 15 was read at a conference held at Wayne State University
in October, 2007. My thanks to all my editors and hosts.
Many friends have read these chapters at different stages of their compo-
sition, and I am indebted to them for their criticisms and suggestions. In
particular, I would like to thank Harold Bloom, Larry Bouchard, Gerald L.
Bruns, Stephen Cushman, Jacques Derrida, Alan Gould, Brad S. Gregory,
Paul Groner, Geoffrey Hartman, Jean-Yves Lacoste, Claire Lyu, Paul Mariani,
Charles Mathewes, Michael L. Morgan, John Nemec, Kate Rigby, Claude
Romano, Kurtis Schaeffer, Michael A. Signer, Richard Strier, Alan Toumayan,
Henry Weinfield, Siân White, and Robin Darling Young. I would also like to
