Ideas

American writers constructed prose and poetry on a Puritan foundation . . .

. . . but were haunted by the house they built.

Energized by Providence and biblical injunction, migration from Europe to America had its strongest influence from committed Christians. In search of a “new world” where faith could be practiced in freedom, Plymouth Rock pilgrims brought with them a commitment to thinking Christianly about everything. Early American writing was infused with God’s attributes, attributing creational phenomena to the Creator. The personal, eternal, triune God of the Bible was a general commitment of early American authors.

Preacher-writers such as Cotton Mather and Jonathan Edwards advanced the study of all things based on a God-centered view of life. Magnalia Christi Americana and The Christian Philosopher displayed Mather’s literary prowess. Edwards, most known for his prodigious sermon output, wrote volumes on a plethora of subjects including biographies, science, theology, and philosophy. American literature has its roots in 17^th and 18^th century New England.

Of course, not all followed biblical thought, creating new strands in the fabric of American literature. Those who rejected the Christian faith often did so based on

(1) denial of biblical authority,

(2) abandonment of supernatural miracles,

(3) departure from salvation through Christ alone, and

(4) disavowal of original sin.

Rejection, however, does not necessarily equal defection. God may be rejected but He cannot be ignored. As in the biblical book of Esther, lack of God’s mention does not equal His nonattendance. Immaterial questions of authority, meaning, and ethics pervade American literature, questions that allude to, if not cry out for, an immaterial answer. Individualism, pragmatism, traditionalism, or syncretism attempt to fill the void but cannot satisfy the vacancy. American literature is at times “godless” dealing with humans as they are—great yet broken, a vessel empty without God.

Ralph Waldo Emerson tried to fill the void with Nature, attempting to replace God with himself. “I become a transparent eye-ball . . . I am part or particle of God (On Nature) and “No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature”[1] (Self Reliance) express the essence of American literature which turned away from Christianity.

Herman Melville’s estrangement from God is metaphorically marked by his masterpiece Moby Dick. Mark Twain’s antipathy toward Christian viewpoints simmered throughout his early writing coming to a boil in later writing such as Letters from the Earth and The Mysterious Stranger. Jack London’s Call of the Wild or short stories such as “To Build a Fire” are more blatant, relying on nothing and no one outside the natural world. Absent supernatural authority, Stephen Crane’s “The Open Boat” submits to naught more than indifferent nature whose “high cold star on a winter’s night” is its only communication.[2]

Writers who maintained a Christian viewpoint did so struggling with biblical beliefs within a fallen world. Believers’ uncertainty clouded but did not cover their Christian faith in matters of justice, suffering, doubt, and evil. Christianity gives voice to literary artists who want to consider mystery, as in Flannery O’Connor’s short story “Revelation,” or crises of faith, as in John Updike’s “Pidgeon Feathers.” Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Minister’s Black Veil” describes the tortured human heart.

Annie Dillard is haunted by Transcendent Presence in The Pilgrim of Tinker Creek. Frederick Buechner’s Godric reminds the reader of human depravity, overwhelmed by God’s mercy. Katherine Paterson’s Bridge to Terabithia is her response to the death of a neighbor’s child within the parameters of Providence. Willa Cather’s expansive view of place tells the reader geography changes us, enticing the reader to consider God’s attendance everywhere. Unimpressed by scientific advance in The Professor’s House, Cather places importance in “the old riddles” concerned that human conduct include the problem of sin because without it people are “impoverished.”[3]

All authors ponder the great questions of life, no matter their beliefs. Marilynne Robinson’s focus on the gospel in Gilead implores the reader to reflect on implications for the Christian message: “You can know a thing to death and be for all purposes completely ignorant of it.”[4] American author, admitted atheist, Cormac McCarthy contemplates life and death, good and evil in books such as No Country for Old Men and The Road. Everyone confronts evil as “a true thing” as he posits through the voice of a Mexican prisoner in All the Pretty Horses

Americans have ideas that are not so practical. They think that there are good things and bad things. They are very superstitious, you know . . . It is the superstition of a godless people . . . There can be in a man some evil. But we don’t think it is his own evil. Where did he get it? How did he come to claim it? No. Evil is a true thing in Mexico. It goes about on its own legs. Maybe some day it will come to visit you. Maybe it already has.[5]

Perhaps E. L. Doctorow’s City of God summarizes the ultimate issue for the searcher: “That the universe, including our consciousness of it, would come into being by some fluke happenstance, that this dark universe of incalculable magnitude has been accidentally self-generated . . . is even more absurd than the idea of a creator.”[6]

East of Eden, John Steinbeck’s master work, might best portray Christianity’s impact on American literature. “Choice,” timshel in Hebrew, provides the crux of the story. Steinbeck concludes “thou mayest” as the decision that all people face between good and evil, right and wrong, righteousness and rebellion; whether one will go the way of Cain or the way of Abel.

The tension found in East of Eden is the tension everyone finds in themselves. Steinbeck, though not a Christian, felt the pressure of timshel through his grandparents who were Christian missionaries. The Christian message is honest with human choice in American literature. The literary preference between following the Christian God or not can be understood by an American use of terms: one either accepts the Puritan ethos or rejects it as “puritanical.”

“Christianity in American Literature”© is one of 22 articles included in the History of Christianity in the United States (Rowman & Littlefield) by Dr. Mark Eckel

References and Resources

Brown, W. Dale. Of Fiction and Faith: Twelve American Writers Talk about Their Vision and Work. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1997.

Cowen, Louise and Os Guinness, eds. Invitation to the Classics: A Guide to Books You’ve Always Wanted to Read. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2006.

Davis, Jeffry C. and Philip G. Ryken. Liberal Arts for the Christian Life. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012.

Eckel, Mark and Tyler Eckel, “Author Without Authority: Stephen Crane’s Belief within The Red Badge of Courage and ‘The Open Boat,’” Intégrité, Spring, 2013 (12:1), 32-41.

Kazin, Alfred. God and the American Writer. New York, NY: Knopf, 1997.

Larsen, David L. The Company of the Creative: A Christian Reader’s Guide to Great Literature and Its Themes. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1999.

Lockerbie, D. Bruce. Dismissing God: Modern Writers’ Struggle Against Religion. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998.

Luccock, Halford E. and Frances Brentano, eds. The Questing Spirit: Religion in the Literature of Our Time. New York, NY: Coward-McCann, Inc. 1947.

Lundin, Roger. From Nature to Experience: The American Search for Cultural Authority. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005.

Tippens, Darryl, Stephen Weathers, Jeanne Murray Walker, eds. Shadow & Light: Literature and the Life of Faith. Abilene, TX: Abilene Christian University, 2005.

[1] Ralph Waldo Emerson. Ralph Waldo Emerson: Selected Essays, Lectures and Poems. New York, NY: Random House, 2006, pp. 18, 153.

[2] Stephen Crane. The Open Boat: And Other Tales of Adventure. New York, NY: Doubleday & McClure Company, 1898, p. 45.

[3] Willa Cather. The Professor’s House. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2002, p. 68.

[4] Marilynne Robinson. Gilead. New York, NY: MacMillan Publishers, 2005, 6.

[5] Cormac McCarthy. All the Pretty Horses: Book 1 of The Border Trilogy. New York, NY: Knopf Doubleday Publishing, 2010, p. 194.

[6] E. L. Doctorow. The City of God. Waterville, ME: Thorndike Press, 2000, p. 47.

“Tell all the truth, but tell it slant.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wheatley_Poems.jpg

Poetry

Our little systems have their day;

They have their day and cease to be;

They are but broken lights of thee,

And thou, O Lord, art more than they.[i]

Every writer, including a poet, has a point of view. The poet addresses the subjects of God, life, humans, ethics, or the afterlife. The poet allows feeling about thinking, wrestles ambiguity within reality, expresses life through symbols, employs imagery about substance, and stresses experience as trustworthy.  A word paints a thousand pictures. Poetry is premised upon the visual power of verbal connections in the human imagination. 

Biblical Theology of Poetry

And we must extinguish the candle, put out the light and relight it;

Forever must quench, forever relight the flame.

There we thank Thee for our little light, that is dappled with shadow.

And we thank Thee that darkness reminds us of light.

O Light Invisible, we give Thee thanks for Thy great glory![ii]

When a person points to an object, the focus is not on the finger but upon its intended target. For the Christian, poetry is not an end in itself but a descriptive pointer toward Heaven (Ps. 141:2; 142:2) or a marker of experience on earth (Ps. 19:1-6). Unbelieving poets may accept the mythical muse as their director; the Christian believes God’s Spirit communes with the poet’s spirit (Pss. 32, 51), responding to the vagaries and vicissitudes of life. God uses poetry to communicate His Truth to people within His revelation to them. Jesus’ famous words “Haven’t you read?!” (Mat. 12:3, 5; 19:1; 21:16, 42; 22:31) establish the expectation: reading, reflection, and response to revelation is necessary (Ps. 139:23-24).

The interpretation of peoples’ words is important.  Ecclesiastes uses poetry to examine naturalism showing that its insufficient view of the world must be corrected (1:2; 3:19-21; 9:1, 10). Laments from Job (chapter 3) or Psalms (88) must be understood in the energetic, emotive spirit of the Eastern mindset. Song of Solomon uses poetic terminology for physical affection between Solomon and his bride.  Jeremiah uses animal husbandry to communicate Israel’s sin (2:23-25). Isaiah uses Middle Eastern vineyards to explain Israel’s rootedness to God (Is. 5:1-5).

Response to the wonder-awe of the mysteries of life, the immensity of creation, and the ineffable nature of God must be part of the poetic interpretive process (Pss. 104, 149, 150). Poetry demands an attention to peoples’ emotions (Ps. 13:1-2). Personal-relational-historical connections from the reader to the author are necessary (Ps. 57). Imagination is necessary to understand poetic connections (Hab. 3:17-19). Repetition of truth through poetry strengthens Christian teaching processes (Deut. 32; Jud. 5; 1 Sam. 15:22-23; Col. 3:16; 1 Tim. 3:16).

Word pictures are used to make the reader visualize (see), empathize (feel), and synthesize (fuse) their worlds. Advertisements in television, radio, magazines and billboards explain what is obvious: pictures are important. When Isaiah (44:6-20) sarcastically belittles idol makers, the visual imagery in the poetic diatribe reverberates off the page. Zoomorphism, personification, metaphors, and anthropomorphism bring words to life. Christian teaching should utilize the power of poetry both inside and outside of the Bible.

Christian Practice of Poetry

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;

As tumbled over rim in roundy wells

Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s

Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;

Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:

Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;

Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,

Crying What I do is me: for that I came.[iii]

Methods of teaching could employ various uses for poetry. Hopkins’ poem above explains that everything in God’s world has purpose; its meaning is tied up in what it is, what it was intended to be. The design of God’s creation cannot be overlooked.  In another way, poetry can be used to compare and contrast point of view. The poetry of the skeptic William Ernest Henley “Captain of My Fate” can be seductive. But Alfred Lord Tennyson’s eternal view in “Crossing the Bar” gives one pause when the poems are placed side-by-side. e.e. cummings “pity this busy monster manunkind, not” could be held up next to Shakespeare’s seven stages of a man in “As You Like It” and Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Conquerer Worm.” The images by themselves are stark, showing human-centered, earth-bound views of people. A comparative, distinctive Christian view would be obvious. Symbolism, imagery, and figures can be aptly used in worship and teaching. Allowing words to be heard, to be given honor, would benefit all who listen, giving credence once again to the importance of expression and memory. Poetry addresses wounds too great to bear, helps to deepen the understanding of the tear, cleansing the wound.

Poetry stimulates imagination and activates possibilities. Poetry exposes ideas in different ways.  Poetry builds theological vocabulary.  Creating connections with people happens through poesy. Peoples’ perspectives are broadened through different thinking processes in poetry.  Ultimately, transformation—people changed in their thinking and living—is the ultimate Christian teaching outcome (Ps. 119:103; Jer. 15:16; Ezek. 3:2).

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant—

Success in Circuit lies

Too bright for our infirm Delight

The Truth’s superb surprise.

As Lightning to the Children eased

With explanation kind

The Truth must dazzle gradually

Or every man be blind.[iv]

Other Helps

Dana Gioia Can Poetry Matter? Essays on Poetry and American Culture (Minneapolis, Graywolf Press, 2002).

W.H. Auden, The Dyer’s Hand and Other Essays (New York, Vintage Books, 1990).

“Poetry” © is one of 17 articles included in The Encyclopedia of Christian Education, Rowman & Littlefield, April, 2015 by Dr. Mark Eckel.

[i] Alfred Lord Tennyson, “In Memorium: A.H.H. The Prelude”

[ii] T. S. Eliot, “The Rock”

[iii] Gerard Manley Hopkins, “As Kingfishers Catch Fire”

[iv] Emily Dickenson, “Tell It Slant.”