Marian Poem-Prayers in the Modern Age

Real Assent

Marian Poem-Prayers in the Modern Age cover

Marian Poem-Prayers in the Modern Age

Real Assent

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Pre-order. Available 13 Nov 2025
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Description

Exploring a range of twentieth and twenty-first century Marian prayer-poetry – poem-prayers directed to or involving Mary by poets such as T. S. Eliot, David Jones, Geoffrey Hill, Elizabeth Jennings, Hilary Davies and Rowan Williams, this book traces its resurgence from the late nineteenth-century to the present day.

By the early twentieth century, the once widespread and fervent cult of the Virgin Mary had been at best deeply hidden, if not entirely absent from England's religious life, since the Reformation. The figure of Mary similarly largely vanished from English poetry, only to return, gradually, as Marian devotion revived in the nineteenth century. The perception of it as somehow un-English, which had developed during the centuries of its absence, presented a challenge to poets who wished to take up the Marian theme in the modern day. This book looks at some ways in which male and female poets from both Roman Catholic and Anglican backgrounds responded to this situation. It also argues that the figure of Mary is a type of John Henry Newman's category of “real assent”: commitment that is not merely intellectual, but involves the totality of a person's being in relation to God.

Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction

1. No Mother at the Manger
2. Newman, Hopkins and the Blessed Virgin
3. Singing of a Maiden in the Modern Day
4. Ponder These Things
5. 'She's A Rare One for Locality'
Conclusion

Bibliography
Index

Product details

Bloomsbury Academic Test
Published 13 Nov 2025
Format Hardback
Edition 1st
Extent 224
ISBN 9781350507371
Imprint Bloomsbury Academic
Dimensions 234 x 156 mm
Series New Directions in Religion and Literature
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Author

Jean Ward

Jean Ward is Professor of Literary Studies in Engl…

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