Savoring God

Comparative Theopoetics
Erscheinungsjahr 2021
ISBN: 978-0-19-090736-5
Verlag: Hurst & Co.

Buch, Englisch, 248 Seiten, Format (B × H): 168 mm x 254 mm, Gewicht: 499 g

Savoring God is a comparative study that examines the creative interaction of poetry and theology in two mystical poems central to the Christian and the Hindu traditions, the sixteenth-century Spanish Cántico espiritual (Spiritual Canticle), by Saint John of the Cross, and the Sanskrit Rasa Lila (Dance of Love), which originated in the oral tradition. Alongside the poems, Gloria Maité Hernández examines theological commentaries on the texts: the Comentarios, written by Saint John of the Cross on his own poem, and the foundational commentary on the Rasa Lila by Sridhara Svami as well as commentaries by the sixteenth-century theologian Jiva Gosvami, from the Gaudiya Vaisnava school, and other Gaudiya theologians.

The phrase "savoring God" conveys the Spanish gustar a Dios (to savor God) and the Sanskrit madhura bhakti rasa (the sweet savor of divine love). In the Christian and Hindu commentaries these two concepts describe a way of approaching the poems that is simultaneously vulnerable to the emotions evoked by the poetical imagery and responsive to its theological demands. While "savoring" does not mean the precisely the same thing to the Christian and the Hindu theologians, Hernández demonstrates that both traditions interpret the term to suggest poetry's power in mediating an encounter with the divine.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Hernández, Gloria Maité

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturwissenschaft
• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Christentum/Christliche Theologie Allgemein
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein Vergleichende Religionswissenschaft
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Hinduismus

Über Autor(innen)

Gloria Maité Hernández is an Associate Professor of Spanish at West Chester University.