05-4 Theology of the..

62 LOGIA
Alone deserves to rank as wise,
Whoever wisdom’s airs rehearses
May stand godfather to my verses!
He’d injure me and have no gain
If he would not this book retain.
Here you will find of fools no dearth
And everything you wish on earth,
The reasons why you’re here listed,
Why many fools have ay existed,
What joy and honor wisdom bears
And why a fool in danger fares,
The world’s whole course in one brief look—
Are reasons why to buy this book.
In jest and earnest evermore
You will encounter fools galore.
The wise man’s pleasure I will win,
While fools speak oft of kith and kin,
Fools poor and rich, high-bred and tyke,
Yes, everyman will find his like,
I cut a cap for every chap,
But none of them will care a rap,
And if I’d named and then apprized him,
He’d say I had not recognized him.
I hope, though, men who’re really wise
Will find a deal to praise and prize,
And out of knowledge say forsooth
That I have spoken but the truth.
If I were sure that they’d approve
I’d care not what the fools reprove.
Naught else but truth the fool must hear,
Although it pleases not his ear.
Terence asserts that truth can breed
Deep hate, and he is right, indeed,
And he who blows his nose too long
Will have a nosebleed hard and strong ...
CHAPTERS INTO VERSE
Browsing the files at the local public library, I came across the twovolume
collection Chapters Into Verse: Poetry in English Inspired
by the Bible, edited by Robert Atwan and Laurance Wieder (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1993). This work juxtaposes scripture
verses with analogous poetry and does so in a way that might positively
or negatively jar something loose in our minds. We might
regret not finding any of Franzmann’s verse herein, but this is a
start. Here is an excerpt from the introduction.
Ezra Pound once tweaked T. S. Eliot for preferring Moses to the
Muses. Pound’s witty remark reminds us of English poetry’s two
great heritages: the classical and the scriptural, or (as Matthew
Arnold named them) the Hellenic and the Hebraic. Poetry
inspired by classical Greek and Latin models has dominated the
poetic landscape for so many centuries that most readers now
consider it the only literary tradition. Although the scriptural tra-
dition in English poetry is every bit as venerable as the classical, it
has never received the attention accorded its chosen twin. Like
Ishmael and Esau, it has led a shadow existence. We hope that
this collection will finally bring the scriptural tradition out of the
shadows and into the light.
Chapters into Verse, therefore, is more than just another
anthology of English-language poetry. It is (so far as we know)
the first collection ever assembled of poems inspired by the Bible.
Its two volumes survey and define a literary legacy that has lived
and at times flourished in the wilderness, unremarked by the
reigning literary culture. All of the poems selected for both the
Old Testament and New Testament editions respond to specific
passages of scripture. Arranged in Biblical order from Genesis to
Malachi (in Volume One), from Matthew to Revelation (Volume
Two), every poem is preceded by at least the kernel of the appropriate
chapter and verse. Whenever possible, we print a poem’s
Biblical source in full; at other times, to save space, we have
excerpted chapter and verse . ...
Although each volume of Chapters into Verse contains a wide
variety of poetic forms, readers may discover that—aside from
theological dissimilarities—there are some notable differences
between the two books. Poets attracted to the Old Testament
apparently prefer a larger scope and a more impassioned, or
rhapsodic, language: they will exult in the glory of creation,
reimagine the songs of Moses, of Deborah, David, Solomon,
Hezekiah; they will compose dramas, chivalric romances, verse
essays, and epics. The poetry of the New Testament is largely
lyrical and meditative, verse that seems better suited to the
more inward and private response encouraged by the spiritual
quest of Jesus.[!] The Old Testament, on the other hand, invites
a more public, less personal and introspective, poetry. In addition,
far more of the Old Testament poetry is composed of
paraphrase, a difference explained by the fact that the Hebrew
Scripture is in many ways a poetic work, with approximately
one-third of its text taken up with psalms, songs, lamentations,
and various forms of narrative or prophetic verse. In contrast,
the New Testament is essentially a prose work, encompassing
many types of prose forms—biographies, encomiums, sayings,
parables, letters, epistles, rabbinical stories and episodic narratives
....
The history of the Bible in English runs parallel to the development
of English poetry. John Wycliffe, who made an English
Bible from the Latin Vulgate, was a contemporary of Friar Herebert.
The first translation from the original tongues into English
was undertaken by the unfortunate English Catholic priest,
William Tyndale. He perished at the stake after falling into the
hands of the Inquisition in the 1540s, the same decade that saw
the deaths of the first English sonneteers, Sir Thomas Wyatt and
Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey.
Besides Englishing Petrarch, Wyatt also translated the Seven
Penitential Psalms before his execution for leading a rebellion
against the Catholic Queen Mary Tudor; Surrey verse-paraphrased
Ecclesiastes. ... By the time James I’s committee dedicated
the first official English Bible in 1611, Shakespeare’s life was
nearly over and John Milton was about to be born. By the eighteenth
century literature and scripture had pretty much parted
company.