The Poets and the Fathers: Theology and Poetry from Gregory Nazianzus to Scott Cairns - Paperback

by Timothy E. G. Bartel (Author)

Christian poetry was born at the crossroads of the Greek, Hebrew, Roman, and Syrian cultures of late antiquity. Pioneered by poets like Ephrem the Syrian, Gregory Nazianzus, and Prudentius, a uniquely Christian poetry--and poetics--has flourished across history into the twenty-first century. In this series of essays, poet and literary scholar Timothy E. G. Bartel explores the often-overlooked genesis of Christian poetry in the fourth century AD, with a special emphasis on the poetics and cultural-theological vision of St. Gregory Nazianzus. Bartel then traces the influence of the inventors of Christian poetry to poets of more recent centuries, including Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, T. S. Eliot, C. S. Lewis, and Scott Cairns. It is in these poets of the last three centuries that we see the continual outworking of the ancient Christian poetic project and a blueprint for the future of a literature that continues to learn from the church fathers and the theological traditions of Christianity.

Author Biography

Timothy E. G. Bartel is a poet and professor from California. He is the author of The Heroines of Henry Longfellow (2022), and A Crown for Abba Moses: New and Selected Poems (2023). Timothy serves as professor of great texts and theology at Saint Constantine College.