[R. S. Gwynn]

Preface

Until quite recently a substantial amount of English-language poetry was Christian verse. This tradition stretched over a millennium from the earliest surviving Anglo-Saxon poems, such as The Dream of the Rood, to the works of modern masters such as T. S. Eliot and W. H. Auden. The English-speaking world was conceived, even by non-believers, as part of Christendom, and a religious worldview was everywhere evident in its literature, even when the subjects were not overtly spiritual. As Donald Davie observed in the “Introduction” to his Oxford Book of Christian Verse, “most of those Christians did not suppose that their Christianity stopped when they came out through the church-door.” Religion provided the moral and symbolic framework for poetry on all subjects. Much of the writing, however, was specifically religious. It would be impossible to trace the history of poetry in English without recognizing the centrality of spiritually engaged Christians—a line that included Edmund Spenser, George Herbert, John Donne, Ben Jonson, John Milton, Henry Vaughan, John Dryden, William Blake, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Alfred Tennyson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Christina Rossetti, and Gerard Manley Hopkins. This list does not represent a literary subculture; it constituted—until the late nineteenth century —the tradition itself.

Yet it is misleading to speak of a single tradition of Christian verse, because this vast literary and religious enterprise took many forms—the philosophical speculations of Wordsworth and Tennyson, the supernatural epics of Milton and Blake, the existential lyrics of Donne and Hopkins, and the great congregational hymns of Isaac Watts and William Cowper. At the center of these spiritual traditions, however, stood devotional verse—poetry written to serve as meditations for the spiritual exercises that constitute an important part of Christian religious life.

Devotional verse has always played a significant role in Christian practice, though congregations customarily think of the texts less as poetic than liturgical. Much of the Old Testament is written in verse, and this poetry is ubiquitous in Catholic liturgy, including both the Mass and Divine Office. Monastic worship centers on communal chanting of the Psalms. The many manuals of devotionals, therefore, almost inevitably include Biblical verse in their daily selections. Literary devotional poetry seeks to create new verse to aid the spiritual needs of contemporary believers. The greatest devotional poets in English, such as Herbert and Vaughan, were prolific, writing verse that engaged the reader in every possible spiritual and emotional posture—joy, thanksgiving, anxiety, fear, hope, and sorrow—as well as meditations suitable to the major Christian feasts.

Timothy Murphy’s Devotions revives this major but neglected poetic genre with variety and amplitude. In over two hundred short poems, Murphy explores the vicissitudes of modern spiritual life. Some of the poems are inspirational, celebrating the joyous mysteries of faith. Others confront the sorrows and failures of contemporary life—presenting unvarnished the painful dramas of sin, despair, repentance, and redemption. Murphy celebrates the saints, but he has not forgotten “the battered, the drunkards, the sinners,” among whom the poet numbers himself. In these poems the drama of redemption is not abstract but personal.

The great tradition of devotional verse in English has mostly been Protestant. Among the “Metaphysicals,” only Richard Crashaw was Catholic (though John Donne was raised in the Church of Rome). Consequently, the inwardness and individual focus of Calvinism shaped the forms of these devotions. While Murphy sometimes meditates on the solitary soul before God, he characteristically sees Christianity from a Catholic perspective. For him, Christianity is primarily a mystical community, composed of both the living and the dead united by Christ through the sacraments. His themes, though sacred, are remarkably diverse. The book contains meditations on the Psalms, sacraments, major feast days, priesthood, saints, and the daily sacrifice of the Mass. There are even some comic poems for those who forget how Jesus was not above instructing his apostles through humor. Devotions is a brave book that recaptures a legacy that has nourished both worship and literature. These are genuine poems rooted in a passionate encounter with the divine. I predict they will find many devoted readers.

Dana Gioia