God the Poet
God in literature
April 1, 2014
159
In readable and nonscholarly fashion, Niehaus, who is both a theologian and poet, provides a theological and literary analysis of the epic poems of Dante (Divine Comedy), Milton (Paradise Lost), Cowper (The Task), and Wordsworth. Niehaus also presents the theological background of great poetry and shows how that background illuminates our understanding of important topics such as creation, sin, hell, the devil, beauty, truth, redemption, and God supremely manifested in Christ. "I hope and believe," writes the author, "that my observations (and the observations of others whom I endorse) on the work of poetic imagination as part of the imago Dei apply equally well to any sort of poetry (and for that matter any art)."
I enjoyed portions of this book, and learned from it, but I think I was let down because it didn’t really live up to the title. The title is stupendous, and promises the moon, which rhymes with June. Nevertheless, the book did what I like books like this to do, which is to get me kind of churned up.