Reformed Literature

[py3ak]

I think there a number of reasons that, relatively speaking, the Reformed have not produced much in the way of strictly literary work. It's an interesting question that would be worth pursuing from a sociological perspective. But "not much" is not the same as none, and so here is a new collection of poems:

The Joseph Tree, by Isabel Chenot

Isabel Chenot has loved and practiced poetry all her remembered life. Her work has appeared in places like Anima, Assisi, Blue Unicorn, Quill & Parchment, Spirit Fire, Rabbit Room, Tinderbox, and Story Warren. Her retelling of an old fairy tale, 'West of Moonlight, East of Dawn,' is forthcoming...

www.wisebloodbooks.com

 

[Romans678]

I think there a number of reasons that, relatively speaking, the Reformed have not produced much in the way of strictly literary work. It's an interesting question that would be worth pursuing from a sociological perspective. But "not much" is not the same as none, and so here is a new collection of poems:

The Joseph Tree, by Isabel Chenot

Isabel Chenot has loved and practiced poetry all her remembered life. Her work has appeared in places like Anima, Assisi, Blue Unicorn, Quill & Parchment, Spirit Fire, Rabbit Room, Tinderbox, and Story Warren. Her retelling of an old fairy tale, 'West of Moonlight, East of Dawn,' is forthcoming...

www.wisebloodbooks.com

My good sir, who is that in your profile? I can't determine if it is from Batman Beyond, Justice Leugue Unlimited, or Batman/Superman Adventures.

Sent from my SM-A326U using Tapatalk

 

[Andrew35]

The Dutch at least have really distinguished themselves more through their sciences and visual arts than their literature, haven't they?

Oh, has anyone read James Hogg's The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner? I haven't yet, but found out recently I'm descended from the guy.

 

[Joshua]

My good sir, who is that in your profile? I can't determine if it is from Batman Beyond, Justice Leugue Unlimited, or Batman/Superman Adventures.

Sent from my SM-A326U using Tapatalk

That's Ruben, resident Bat.

 

[py3ak]

My good sir, who is that in your profile? I can't determine if it is from Batman Beyond, Justice Leugue Unlimited, or Batman/Superman Adventures.

That's Vandal Savage from Justice League, even before Unlimited. The Maid of Honor episodes will allow you to experience the joy of such dialogue as: "The nations of the world--they're stalling and plotting against me."

The Dutch at least have really distinguished themselves more through their sciences and visual arts than their literature, haven't they?

Oh, has anyone read James Hogg's The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner? I haven't yet, but found out recently I'm descended from the guy.

Certainly, there is a very distinguished intellectual and artistic tradition among the Dutch. And yet in literary terms, names don't come to mind as they would for many other European countries. I have heard of Hogg's book, but have never come across it.

That's Ruben, resident Bat.

In terms of idealized self-image, indeed it is.

 

[Jerusalem Blade]

Ruben, thanks – I'll have to check out Isabel Chenot, author of The Joseph Tree.

As a serious writer of lit, poetry and prose, I'd like to show a couple of examples of language art, and a review of the book (to help a hired editor pre-publication get a grasp of it) linked here, A Great and Terrible Love (Google Drive link to digital copies). Here on PB is an aesthetic manifesto from within the Reformed Christian camp, POETRY—IN THE KINGDOM UNDER SIEGE, and, below, the review.

I think a significant characteristic of AGATL is that it's in the genre visionary adventure, non-fiction. We've had enough of imaginary stories – even the best, such as Tolkien's – as fictional tales cannot be entered into, nor carry the baggage of our actual lives. Like, Gandalf or Frodo can't sustain us in our own serious journeys 'cause they're not real, however wonderful the stories are.

An authentic literary character in an actual life and high adventure, is pretty much unheard of in the Reformed camp. If the Lord Jesus is not, ultimately, the Hero of a story then the story is without true merit, as only He has merit. Fantasies can't sustain us. Escapist lit is lame in such days as ours!

AGATL is an actual story, with a real person in it, an anti-hero become a worthy protagonist only due to the actual Saviour's intervention, which then, as that person matures, enters into an eschatological saga of dawning awareness and, later, Biblical exposition in Revelation, purportedly relevant to our own day and times. The full title of the book is A Great and Terrible Love: A Visionary Journey from Woodstock's Sorceries to God's Paradise. There's a paperback on Amazon also (732 pages!).

More writings can be seen here on Academia.edu: https://independent.academia.edu/SteveRafalsky ; no paywall, but they may want registration.

I'm wary of promoting myself (a wretch), but serious art ought to be life-saving, and worthy of pondering.

 

[Stephen L Smith]

In terms of Reformed literary work you cannot beat Pilgrim's Progress. I love the Banner of Truth edition because it contains both Parts 1 and 2.

 

[Faythe]

In terms of Reformed literary work you cannot beat Pilgrim's Progress. I love the Banner of Truth edition because it contains both Parts 1 and 2.

Thank you. I love Pilgrim's Progress but the edition I purchased was not always easy to read. I took a look at what you linked. After looking inside, it is exactly what I want. 7-10 days and I will read it again

 

[py3ak]

Ruben, thanks – I'll have to check out Isabel Chenot, author of The Joseph Tree.

I'm wary of promoting myself (a wretch), but serious art ought to be life-saving, and worthy of pondering.

If that hesitancy about self-promotion were the main reason there's so little Reformed literary endeavor, I think it would speak well of us. But since other sorts of writing get promoted to excess, there's a reason other than modesty that little literature gets written, let alone known and read, in Reformed circles. No worries about sharing your work here!

In terms of Reformed literary work you cannot beat Pilgrim's Progress. I love the Banner of Truth edition because it contains both Parts 1 and 2.

Indeed, Pilgrim's Progress is a magnificent accomplishment. It also shows that the use of imagination in the service of truth is not proscribed by the simple fact of holding to good doctrine. Of course, a catalogue with one entry is still fairly slight.

 

[Jerusalem Blade]

So, Ruben, what, in your view, is "the main reason there's so little Reformed literary endeavor"?

 

[py3ak]

I don't know that there's one reason, but if a portmanteau of reasons can be summarized in one, the necessary conditions for its growth have largely been lacking. If you take Great Britain as an example, because that is the most accessible literature for most of us, simply from a population standpoint it was likely that most of the literary talent would be within the Anglican church (that doesn't preclude doctrinal Calvinism, clearly).

I have a strong suspicion that class issues also played a role, as well as the educational disabilities placed upon Nonconformists. There's a fairly broad strain of condemnation of novels that goes up at least to Spurgeon, and that might be a less than welcoming environment for noodling around about how to tell a big story. If you were in such an environment and didn't abandon the pursuit out of conscientiousness, it's quite likely you might wind up elsewhere. Or look at it this way: in what light do really Reformed people make an appearance in the literature of Great Britain? Gilfillan the Cameronian in Waverly, for instance, is a fearsome lunatic at whom one laughs safely from a distance. Mr. Slope (from Barchester Towers), whose opposition to Sunday trains we might commend, is a shifty and unprincipled bounder.

 

[Jerusalem Blade]

An excerpted brief chapter out of my book, AGATL:
_______

Preface 2

The year is 2016. The Tower of Vision, in centuries past occupied by poet-seers, has been empty so long the people have forgotten it exists.

Dangers lurk everywhere: economies falter and many middle class go homeless; multitudes – even Americans – suspect their governments (often rightly) of ill designs against them; fanatics of various religions urgently desire to trigger their own Armageddons, the greater the better – desiring especially biological, chemical, or nuclear events – human life cheap in their eyes. One thinks of the lines by Yeats.

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.​

One thinks also of Tolkien’s vision of the encroaching shadow of Mordor, but there he had Hobbits in the wings, with elves, dwarfs, and men to stand against the evil. What do we have? Fiction-holes to bury our heads in.

THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL

will never be written

because, first, who cares
for even a great sprawling fiction
since there is not one Dostoevsky alive
to fill it with living vision

and then, again, who cares
for but another fantasy
however shot through with genius
in these archetypal days of our reality

no, a novel is a plaything
of genius, and peoples
to make up for the absence
of an epic Poet

only the actual matters
anymore, only the truth
of these our lives & this our world
has any relevance whatever

and it is in the works

THE GREAT AMERICAN POEM​

Yet it is clear poetry cannot sustain the modern attention, so a “great American Poem” would not pan, though perhaps a marriage might be arranged, where prose unites with poetry (a body of work embedded with poems as a sturdy sword sheath and hilt with gems). Only to have the tower truly occupied!
_______

 

[Jerusalem Blade]

All of which to say – I think fiction will no longer hack it, however good, for fantasy fails us in our existential moments and crises: it avails not to sustain our hearts. Only something real can. So what sort of work of literary excellence could such be? A true – actual – saga of spiritual and Biblical activity (even with dark moments) and vision.

Although my own work lacks in some respects, I have given it my "best shot". It is both a personal tale and eschatological saga....as well an aesthetic manifesto regarding the arts.

 

[py3ak]

All of which to say – I think fiction will no longer hack it, however good, for fantasy fails us in our existential moments and crises: it avails not to sustain our hearts. Only something real can. So what sort of work of literary excellence could such be? A true – actual – saga of spiritual and Biblical activity (even with dark moments) and vision.

Hmm. I have a more modest conception of literature; its purpose is to edify and entertain, it is a delightful way to give instruction, or an instructive way to give delight. No book except God's is really adequate to sustain the heart in an existential crisis. From that point of view, whether it is fiction or not, poetry or not, is not the most significant criterion.

 

[Jerusalem Blade]

Ruben, I went back to your OP, and considered the words, "strictly literary work" which the Reformed have not produced, so I see your "Hmm" as appropriate! I suppose I have become single-mindedly focused on a very narrow type of literary work, given the horror of the unregenerate human condition, a gift of writing, and my call to communicate the Gospel, and hope to produce a classic (i.e., profoundly relevant and widely read) presenting Christ and His saving heart and vision.

I sometimes forget there are others views of and uses for literature!

 

[py3ak]

Ruben, I went back to your OP, and considered the words, "strictly literary work" which the Reformed have not produced, so I see your "Hmm" as appropriate! I suppose I have become single-mindedly focused on a very narrow type of literary work, given the horror of the unregenerate human condition, a gift of writing, and my call to communicate the Gospel, and hope to produce a classic (i.e., profoundly relevant and widely read) presenting Christ and His saving heart and vision.

I sometimes forget there are others views of and uses for literature!

That's understandable! It is not really the sort of thing you're aiming at, but if you have a chance to read Eugene Vodolazkin's Laurus it is a novel that incorporates more about God than most do these days.