Presentation -- Modern Poets and Christian Faith

While our course focuses on three poets in particular, it is good for you to be familiar with other poets of Christian faith who wrote during the 20th century. Your presentation will be an oral presentation that explains the place of Christian faith in the life of a poet from the Modern period and its influence on his or her work.  Your presentation will be apprx. eight minutes long.   It will include a handout for the class, including photocopies of the poems you intend to read.

The presentation has three parts:

  1. A discussion of the poet's background.  Exactly how did the Christian faith impact this poet's life and work?
  2. A reading of a poem or poems that illustrates this impact.
  3. A discussion of the poem(s) with a stress on the poem(s) as a work of literature.

The following poets are possibilities for the presentation.  A few poets wrote in a language other than English, but their work has been translated into English. A sign-up list will be provided in class.  For some of these below, you will need to order books through Inter-Library Loan or visit another university library in the area (via TexShare).

  • Allen Tate
  • Denise Levertov
  • John Berryman
  • Robert Lowell
  • Marrianne Moore
  • Richard Wilbur
  • R.A.K. Mason
  • R.S. Thomas
  • Geoffrey Hill
  • Anna Akhmatova
  • George Mackay Brown
  • Paul Claudel (French)
  • William Everson
  • Thomas Merton
  • Czeslaw Milosz (Polish)
  • Gabriela Mistral (Spanish)
  • Edwin Muir
  • William Stafford
  • Charles Peguy (French)

"All manner of thing shall be well/ When the tongues of flame are in-folded/ Into the crowned knot of fire/ And the fire and the rose are one." -- T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding