Silence, the Word and the Sacred

Description

The result of a dialogue between poets and scholars on the meaning and making of the sacred, this book endeavours to determine how the sacred emerges in sacred script as well as in poetic discourse. It ranges through scholarship in areas as apparently disparate as postmodernism and Buddhism. The perspectives developed are various and without closure, locating the sacred in modes as diverse as patristic traditions, feminist retranslations of biblical texts, and oral and written versions of documents from the world’s religions. The essays cohere in their preoccupation with the crucial role language plays in the creation of the sacred, particularly in the relation that language bears to silence. In their interplay, language does not silence silence by, rather, calls the other as sacred into articulate existence.

Sujets

• Religión
• Religion

Informations

• Publié par: Wilfrid Laurier University Press
• Date de parution: 30 octobre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9780889205246
• Langue: English

Extrait

SILENCE, THE WORD AND THE SACRED
Edited by E. D. Blodgett and H. G. Coward
The result of a dialogue between poets and scholars on the meaning and making of the sacred, this book endeavours to determine how the sacred emerges in sacred script as well as in poetic discourse. It ranges through scholarship in areas as apparently disparate as postmodernism and Buddhism. The perspectives developed are various and without closure, locating the sacred in modes as diverse as patristic traditions, feminist retranslations of biblical texts, and oral and written versions of documents from the world s religions. The essays cohere in their preoccupation with the crucial role language plays in the creation of the sacred, particularly in the relation that language bears to silence. In their interplay, language does not silence silence but, rather, calls the other as sacred into articulate existence.
E. D. Blodgett is Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Alberta and a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
H. G. Coward is Professor of Religious Studies and Director of The Calgary Institute for the Humanities, The University of Calgary.
SILENCE, THE WORD AND THE SACRED
Edited by E. D. Blodgett and H. G. Coward
Essays by
Rudy Wiebe Joseph Epes Brown
Robin Blaser Monique Dumais
Smaro Kamboureli David Goa
Doug Jones Ronald Bond
Stanley Hopper David Atkinson
Harold Coward E. D. Blodgett
Published by Wilfrid Laurier University Press for The Calgary Institute for the Humanities
This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Main entry under title: Silence, the word and the sacred
Papers presented at the conference, Silence, the Sacred and the Word, held in Calgary, Alta., Oct. 2-5, 1986. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-88920-981-2
1. Holy, The in literature - Congresses. 2. Languages - Religious aspects - Congresses. 3. Silence - Religious aspects - Congresses. 4. Poetry - History and criticism - Congresses. I. Wiebe, Rudy, 1934- . II. Blodgett, E. D. (Edward Dickinson), 1935- . III. Coward, Harold G., 1936- . IV. Calgary Institute for the Humanities.
PN49.S55 1989 809 .9338 C89-094111-4
Copyright 1989 Wilfrid Laurier University Press Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3C5 89 90 91 92 4 3 2 1
Cover design by Vijen Vijendren
Printed in Canada
Silence, the Word and the Sacred has been produced from a manuscript supplied in camera-ready form by The Calgary Institute for the Humanities.
No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system, translated or reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, microfiche, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Foreword
About the Authors
Introduction
Notes
I Experience of the Sacred by Poets and Writers
The Words of Silence: Past and Present Rudy Wiebe, University of Alberta
Poetry and Positivisms: High-Muck-A-Muck or Spiritual Ketchup Robin Blaser, Simon Fraser University
Notes
St. Teresa s Jouissance: Toward a Rhetoric of Reading the Sacred Smaro Kamboureli, University of Manitoba
Notes
Notes on a Poetics of the Sacred D. G. Jones, University of Sherbrooke
Notes
The Word as Symbol in Sacred Experience Stanley Hopper, Emeritus Professor, Syracuse University
References
The Spiritual Power of Oral and Written Scripture Harold Coward, University of Calgary
Notes
II The Sacred Word in Specific Settings
Evoking the Sacred through Language, Metalanguage, and the Arts in Native American and Arctic Experience Joseph Epes Brown, University of Montana
Notes
Le sacr et l autre Parole : selon une voix feministe Monique Dumais, Universit du Qu bec Rimouski
Notes
The Word that Transfigures David J. Goa, Curator, Provincial Museum of Alberta
God s Back Parts : Silence and the Accommodating Word Ronald Bond, University of Calgary
Notes
Fullness and Silence: Poetry and the Sacred Word David W. Atkinson, University of Lethbridge
Notes
III Conclusion
Sublations: Silence in Poetic and Sacred Discourse E. D. Blodgett, University of Alberta
Notes
Index
FOREWORD
Established in 1976, the Calgary Institute for the Humanities has as its aim the fostering of advanced study and research in all areas of the humanities. Apart from supporting work in the traditional arts disciplines such as philosophy, history, ancient and modern languages and literatures, it also promotes research into the philosophical and historical aspects of the sciences, social sciences, fine arts, and the various professional disciplines.
The Institute s programs in support of advanced study attempt to provide scholars with time to carry out their work. In addition, the Institute sponsors formal and informal gatherings among people who share common interests, in order to promote intellectual dialogue and discussion. Recently, the Institute has moved to foster the application of humanistic knowledge to contemporary social problems.
The conference Silence, the Sacred and the Word, October 2-5, 1986, brought together Native people, creative writers of poetry and fiction, and scholars of sacred scriptures to examine the way in which words do or do not evoke the Transcendent. This study has theoretical importance for our understanding of much poetry as well as for our awareness of the nature and function of various scriptures in the lives of Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist and Native peoples.
We wish to record here our gratitude to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada; the Minister of Culture, the Province of Alberta; The Institute for New Interpretative Creative Activities, and the University of Calgary Special Projects Fund. Without the careful attention to detail of Gerry Dyer, the Institute Administrator, the Conference would not have been the success that it was.
H. G. Coward Director The Calgary Institute for the Humanities
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
David Atkinson is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Lethbridge. He received his Ph. D. in English from the University of Calgary. Among his publications are: (editor) The World s Major Religions: A College Textbook, Edwin Mellen, 1987; Tagore and Gandhi: Visionaries of Modern India, Asian Research Inc., 1988; Selected Sermons of Zachary Boyd, Aberdeen University Press, 1988; Zachary Boyd and the ars moriendi tradition, Scottish Literary History, Vol. 4 (May, 1977), 5-16; Thomas Cranmer s An exhortation against the feare of Death and the tradition of the ars moriendi, Christianity and Literature, Vol. XXVII (Fall, 1977), 22-28; Tradition and Transformation in R. K. Narayan s A Tiger For Malgudi, International Fiction Review, Vol. XIV, No. 1 (1987), 8-13.
Robin Blaser is Professor Emeritus at Simon Fraser University. He holds an M.A. and an M.L.S. from the University of California at Berkeley. His publications include six volumes of poetry and numerous essays. Among the essays are The Practice of Outside, an essay on the poetics of Jack Spicer, 1975; The Violets: Charles Olson and Alfred North Whitehead, in Process Studies, vol. 13, no. 1, (Spring, 1983) and in Line, no. 2 (Fall, 1983); "Here Lies the Woodpecker Who Was Zeus, an essay on Mary Butts, 1985; and Mind Canaries, an essay on Duchamp and the art of Chris Dikeakos, in Vancouver Art Gallery Catalogue, 1986.
E. D. Blodgett is Professor of Comparative Literature, University of Alberta. He holds a Ph. D. from Rutgers University. He was a Visiting Professor at the Universit de Sherbrooke in 1979. He is the author of Configuration: Essays in the Canadian Literatures, Downsview: ECW Press, 1982; Alice Munro, Boston: O.K. Hall, Twayne Series, 1988; and with Roy Arthur Swanson, The Love Songs of the Carmina Burana, New York: Garland, The Garland Medieval Library, 1987. He has also published five books of poetry of which the latest is Musical Offering, Toronto: Coach House, 1986. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
Ronald Bond is Associate Professor of English and Head of Department at the University of Calgary. He is the editor of Certain Sermons or Homilies (1547) and A Homily Against Disobedience and Wilful Rebellion (1570): A Critical Edition, University of Toronto Press, 1987 and a co-editor of The Yale Edition of the Shorter Poems of Edmund Spenser, forthcoming. Other publications include Vying with Vision: An Aspect of Envy in The Faerie Queene, Renaissance and Reformation, New Series 8/1 (1984), 30-38 and Dark Deeds Darkly Answered: Thomas Becon s Homily Against Whoredom and Adultery, Its Contexts, and Its Affiliations with Three Shakespearian Plays, The Sixteenth Century Journal, 16/2 (1985), 191-205.
Joseph Epes Brown is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Montana. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Stockholm. He is the author of The Spiritual Legacy of the American Indian: The Sacred Pipe, Penguin, 1978.
Harold Coward is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Calgary and Director of the Calgary Institute for the Humanities, University of Calgary. He received his Ph.D. in Religious Studies from McMaster University. Among his publications are: Sphota Theory of Language, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1980; Jung and Eastern Thought, Albany, New York: State University of New York, 1985; Pluralism: Challenge to World Religions, Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1985; Sacred Word and Sacred Text: Scripture in World Religions, Maryknoll, Orbis Boo