Poetry and Apocalypse: Theological Disclosures of Poetic Language

In Poetry and Apocalypse, Franke seeks to find the premises for dialogue between cultures, especially religious fundamentalisms--including Islamic fundamentalism--and modern Western secularism. He argues that in order to be genuinely open, dialogue needs to accept possibilities such as religious apocalypse in ways that can be best understood through the experience of poetry. Franke reads Christian epic and prophetic tradition as a secularization of religious revelation that preserves an understanding of the essentially apocalyptic character of truth and its disclosure in history. The usually neglected negative theology that undergirds this apocalyptic tradition provides the key to a radically new view of apocalypse as at once religious and poetic.

Author: William Franke
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 10/10/2008
Pages: 232
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.95lbs
Size: 9.20h x 6.20w x 0.90d
ISBN: 9780804759106

Review Citation(s):
Chronicle of Higher Education 12/12/2008 pg. 25
Reference and Research Bk News 02/01/2009 pg. 27

About the Author
William Franke is Professor of Comparative Literature and Religious Studies at Vanderbilt University.