We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
‘THE BEST MATERIALS IN THE WORLD FOR POESY’
Passages proclaiming the literary superiority of the Scriptures to all literature were given a new turn by the poet Abraham Cowley (1618–67) in his ‘Preface to poems’ (1656). He describes the current situation of poetry as one in which with grief and indignation he sees ‘that divine science employing all her inexhaustible riches of wit and eloquence either in the wicked and beggarly flattery of great persons, or the unmanly idolising of foolish women, or the wretched affectation of scurril laughter, or at best on the confused antiquated dreams of senseless fables and metamorphoses’ (p. 12). Reform of poetry's subject matter rather than of the art itself is needed:
Amongst all holy and consecrated things which the devil ever stole [and] alienated from the service of the Deity, as altars, temples, sacrifices, prayers and the like, there is none that he so universally and so long usurped as poetry. It is time to recover it out of the tyrant's hands and to restore it to the Kingdom of God, who is the father of it. It is time to baptize it in Jordan, for it will never become clean by bathing in the water of Damascus. There wants, methinks, but the conversion of that and the Jews for the accomplishment of the kingdom of Christ.
(pp. 12–13)The reform is of two kinds: it is not merely that poetry will be reformed, but, so high is his conception of poetry, men will be reformed and, given the conversion of the Jews, the kingdom of God established by the reunification of poetry and religion.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
