Redeeming Poetics
In this essay, I argue that ‘poetics’—defined as ‘poet-criticism’, a practitioner’s firsthand reflection on poetic composition (poiēsis) and verse technique (technē)—makes possible for philosophical theology something that has heretofore been overlooked. I contend that Martin Heidegger’s rendition o...
| Subtitles: | Metaphysics and Poetics |
|---|---|
| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
|
| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Wiley-Blackwell
2024
|
| In: |
Modern theology
Year: 2024, Volume: 40, Issue: 1, Pages: 21-45 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | In this essay, I argue that ‘poetics’—defined as ‘poet-criticism’, a practitioner’s firsthand reflection on poetic composition (poiēsis) and verse technique (technē)—makes possible for philosophical theology something that has heretofore been overlooked. I contend that Martin Heidegger’s rendition of the poetic ‘afflatus’, which travesties technē variously as an eidetic, violent, and inauthentic aspect of poiēsis, has exerted an outsized influence on contemporary theology’s engagements with poetry. The upshot is a tendentious dualism between poiēsis and creatio, through which the interdisciplinary movement known as ‘theopoetics’ currently deconstructs the doctrine of creation ex nihilo. I show that the quietism of theopoetics is merely the reverse face of Heidegger’s residual voluntarism. The neglected late essays of the poet-critic Geoffrey Hill demonstrate that mastery in verse technique, far from conforming to Heidegger’s caricature, entails an erotically motivated co-operation between the poet and their medium. Hill’s poetics is shown to be consonant with the metaphysics of creation and theological anthropology expressed in the writings of Nicholas of Cusa. I ultimately defend the continued relevance of the analogy between human poiēsis and creatio ex nihilo by appealing to Cusanus’s exposition of technē as partaking in the triune co-inherence of God. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 1468-0025 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Modern theology
|
| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1111/moth.12821 |