Abstract
In certain kinds of poetry, a suspicion of traditional forms of language as well as of conventional expressions of faith has grown up alongside evermore declarative forms of religion in the culture at large. This wariness represents a broader quest for spiritual and verbal authenticity that goes back to the French Revolution. This paper sets that quest in the context of Joseph de Maistre’s writings on post-revolutionary faith and language, It follows that posterity through close readings of Baudelaire, T.S. Eliot, Christian Wiman, Wilmer Mills. As these writers strive to represent a real tension between the absence and the paradoxically concomitant presence of transcendence within daily life, it emerges that there are very fine lines between sacred and secular art; their juxtaposition can be more a source of enrichment than an existential threat. Additionally, as poets seek to represent the space between faith and doubt, they find that—like King Midas with his touch of gold—they have taken on a quest that is inherently as well as provocatively self-defeating: that of representing the numinous without reducing it to their own terms. These poets’ responses to that Catch-22 are rich. Their work, secular and sacred, develops strategies that use words to get beyond words, to sometimes transporting effect. These writers both exploit and reimagine verbal forms to apprehend a vision of wholeness within conflicting modes of existence and transcendence. In doing so, they offer a holistic account of what’s at stake in modern existential poetry, and at the heart of modern life.
Presenters
Kathryn MillsProfessor, French and French Studies, University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
2025 Special Focus—Fragile Meanings: Vulnerability in the Study of Religions and Spirituality
KEYWORDS
Faith, Doubt, Poetry, Existentialism, Post-Revolutionary Language
