Religion & Philosophy
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The misty origins of lyric in ritual and magic have long been a source of speculation and fascination, for the formulaic, rhythmic structures of lyric language seem to carry a special force. Lyric’s act of invocation—calling forth, giving shape, drawing into intimate relation—seems to harness the unknown and unseen, whether natural and cosmic energies, spirits, or divinities. Perhaps the most familiar such forms of lyric are prayers, hymns, liturgical texts, mantras—forms of religious practice and ritual observance whose spiritual power often emerges through lyric voicings. The interlinked histories of lyric, religious worship, and philosophical rumination in multiple traditions are captured in this section. |
featured titles
The Dream of the Poem
by Peter Cole, translator
Princeton University Press, 2007. An anthology of over four hundred poems by fifty-four poets writing in Hebrew from Andalusia, this is the most comprehensive gathering of medieval Hebrew poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain (ca. 950-1492) ever assembled in English by the award-winning translator (and Yale faculty member), Peter Cole. Not only does this volume chronicle an extraordinary body of Jewish verse, marked both by provocative sensuality and intense faith; it also embodies the multilingual histories of poems, particularly through the practice of translation.
Persian Sufi Poetry
by J. T. P. de Bruijin
Routledge, 1997. An accessible, authoritative introductory overview for non-specialists to a vast and complex topic, this slim volume surveys the development of Persian mystical poetry. Explaining the relation between Sufism and literature, it describes the main poetic genres of the classical Persian tradition (rubaiyat and do-bayti, qasida, ghazal, masnavi) with an emphasis on mystical experience, providing ample translations along the way. A wonderful scholarly invitation to those captivated by the poems of Rumi, Attar, and Sana’i.
Philosophy as Poetry
by Richard Rorty
University of Virginia Press, 2017. Perhaps the most famous exponent of American pragmatism since John Dewey, Richard Rorty begins his 2004 Page-Barbour lectures, from which this collection is drawn, with a thought experiment: what happens if we think of philosophy as a poem? Challenging the long tradition of thinking of poetry and philosophy as contradictory, agonistic modes of thought and expression, Rorty offers an expansive account of philosophic thinking that draws on the capacious approach of poetry to worldly experience.