“The Poetry of Interpretation” writes a pre-history of the twentieth-century phenomenon of close reading by interpreting the devotional poetry of the English Renaissance in the context of the period’s exegetical literatures. The chapters explore a range of hermeneutic methods that allowed preachers and commentators, writing in the wake of the Reformation’s turn to the “literal sense” of scripture, to grapple with and clarify the bible’s “darke texts.” I argue that early modern religious poets—principally Anne Lock, John Donne, George Herbert, William Alabaster, and John Milton—absorbed these same methods into their compositional practices, merging the arts of poesis and exegesis. Consistently skeptical about the very project they undertake, however, these poets became not just practitioners but theorists of interpretive method. Situated at the intersection of religious history, hermeneutics, and poetics, this study develops a new understanding of lyric’s formal operations while intimating an alternative history of the discipline of literary criticism.

This dissertation explores the influence of Reformation representational anxiety on early seventeenth-century poetic depictions of Christ. I study the poetic shift from physical to metaphorical portrayals of Christ that occurred after the English Reformation infused religious symbols and visual images with transgressive power. Contextualizing the juncture between visual and verbal representation, I examine the poetry alongside historical artifacts including paternosters, a painted glass window, an emblem, sermons, and the account of a state trial in order to trace signs of sensory “loss” in the verse of John Donne, George Herbert, Aemilia Lanyer, and John Milton. The introduction provides a historical and poetic overview of sixteenth-century influences on religious verse. The first chapter contrasts Donne’s sermons—which vividly describe Christ—with his poems, in which Christ’s face is often obscured or avoided. In the chapter on George Herbert's The Temple, I show how Herbert’s initial, physical portraits of Christ increasingly give way to metaphorical images as the book progresses, paralleling the Reformation’s internalization of images. The third chapter shows that Aemilia Lanyer’s Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum makes use of pastoral conventions to fashion Christ as a shepherd-spouse, the divine object of desire. In the final chapter I argue that three poems from John Milton’s 1645 volume can be read as containing signs of Milton’s emerging Arianism. Depictions of Christ in the poetry of Donne, Herbert, Lanyer, and Milton reveal the period’s contestation over images; the sensory strain of these metaphorical representations results in memorable, vivid verse.

While aspects of mysticism appear in the poetry of both George Herbert and Henry Vaughan, the general consensus among critics has acknowledged the mysticism of Vaughan while ignoring its roots in Herbert's writings. Among the leading authorities on the poetry of Herbert, there has been a general tendency to dismiss, ignore, or explain away mystical elements. A study of representative works by prominent critics to ascertain their positions on this issue reveals not only what can be known for certain about Herbert's theology, but also the interpretations that have been offered for his most famous poems. While these interpretations are useful, the discerning reader must look beyond them, both to the tradition of mysticism and to the Bible, to understand the intensely personal nature of Herbert's spiritual journey. Only then can the full extent of his influence on Vaughan be understood.

The central term in Tamil Śaiva religious vocabulary is aruḷ, designating Śiva's fundamental principle. It is widely regarded that Śiva's aruḷ spawned the cosmos, and to a practicing Śaiva, only Śiva's aruḷ can free a soul from the cycle of samsāra or rebirth. In a Śaiva theological context, the term debuts in medieval bhakti (devotional) hymns of the nāyan̲mār (poet-saints); over the course of four centuries (ca. 6th - 9th cents CE) the theological nuances of the term became increasingly intricate. In the last major devotional work produced, the Tiruvācakam (ca. 9th cent CE), Māṇikkavācakar expanded the semantic latitude of aruḷ, using it in ways that the previous Śaiva poets had not. Māṇikkavācakar created a space for arul to become the Śaiva identity mark par excellence. He used the term to indicate an array of theological aspects--Śiva himself, Śiva's grace, any action that Śiva undertakes, the path of knowledge that assists devotees in understanding the nature of the soul, and the mercy and compassion that Śiva has for his servants. While this list is not exhaustive, it points to the semantic breadth of arul as a Śaiva theological concept. This dissertation is an analysis of the semantic evolution of the concept arul through three genres of Tamil literature: classical (caṅkam) heroic and love poetry, and medieval Śaiva devotional poetry. I utilize a variety of texts for the project. From the eight anthologies of cankam poetry, I translate and analyze poems from the Pur̲anān̲ūru, Aiṅkur̲un̲ūru, Kur̲untokai, Akanān̲ūr̲u (ca. 1st century BCE to 4th century CE). From Śaiva bhakti literature, I focus on Māṇikkavācakar's Tiruvācakam. In reading from these texts, I trace the semantic continuity and interruption between the classical secular poetry and the medieval devotional poetry. I argue, among other things, that the cultural underpinnings of the concept remain intact as the term becomes incorporated in the technical vocabulary of Tamil Śaivism. The Śaiva authors were thus able to develop a new and unique style of religious literature that resonated with the cultural and literary past. / text

This dissertation explores the influence of Reformation representational anxiety on early seventeenth-century poetic depictions of Christ. I study the poetic shift from physical to metaphorical portrayals of Christ that occurred after the English Reformation infused religious symbols and visual images with transgressive power. Contextualizing the juncture between visual and verbal representation, I examine the poetry alongside historical artifacts including paternosters, a painted glass window, an emblem, sermons, and the account of a state trial in order to trace signs of sensory “loss” in the verse of John Donne, George Herbert, Aemilia Lanyer, and John Milton. The introduction provides a historical and poetic overview of sixteenth-century influences on religious verse. The first chapter contrasts Donne’s sermons—which vividly describe Christ—with his poems, in which Christ’s face is often obscured or avoided. In the chapter on George Herbert’s The Temple, I show how Herbert’s initial, physical portraits of Christ increasingly give way to metaphorical images as the book progresses, paralleling the Reformation’s internalization of images. The third chapter shows that Aemilia Lanyer’s Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum makes use of pastoral conventions to fashion Christ as a shepherd-spouse, the divine object of desire. In the final chapter I argue that three poems from John Milton’s 1645 volume can be read as containing signs of Milton’s emerging Arianism. Depictions of Christ in the poetry of Donne, Herbert, Lanyer, and Milton reveal the period’s contestation over images; the sensory strain of these metaphorical representations results in memorable, vivid verse.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--Brigham Young University. Dept. of English, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 68-69).

How She Sleeps at Night is a collection of lyric poetry constellated around experiences of disability, trauma, and womanhood. A critical essay introduces the collection by elucidating the experiences and theoretical underpinnings that shaped the body of these poems. The introductory essay distills the principles that informed my cardinal poetic goals as I wrote: to create poems that can be read again and again over a lifetime, which connect with readers' common humanity, and which acknowledge the nuances and complexities of being alive.

Chameleon is a collection of poetry that largely springs from John Keats' notion of the chameleon poet, which posits that poets can and should be able to speak with any voice or perspective in their work. A critical essay introduces the collection by putting Keats in conversation with other poets and scholars, such as Paisley Rekdal, Philip Sidney, and Fernando Pessoa, who also have much to say regarding the nature of voice in poetry. The essay further explores some of my most recurring strategies in poetry as well as what I consider to be some of the touchstones of great poetry. The poems that follow are crafted in agreement with Keats' assumption and constitute my attempt to write as a chameleon poet who aims to write good poems in myriad voices while avoiding harmful appropriation.

Hester Pulter’s (1605-1678) work was discovered in 1996 in the Brotherton Library at the University of Leeds. Pulter composed her poetry in the 1640s-1650s, but her works were not compiled until the 1660s. Overall, her manuscript contains one hundred and twenty poems and emblems in addition to an unfinished prose romance. Pulter recalls her personal life in her poems, and the collection includes her elegiac and lyrical poems on different topics such as politics, religion, childbirth, and the death of her children. In her elegiac poetry, Pulter explores of the experience of childbirth and sickness through a set of conventional Christian ideas about death. However, Pulter’s elegiac poetry also breaks away from Christian conventions, often through the use of astronomical imagery. In this thesis, I argue that Pulter’s grief and consolation strategies sometimes differ from her contemporaries; however, she eventually finds consolation using imagery drawn from her knowledge of the new astronomy, allowing her to reconstruct her identity. Through comparing Pulter with her contemporaries such as George Herber, Katherine Philips, and John Donne, Pulter’s poetry, which has been unstudied until recently, provides an example of a woman writer who is familiar with the seventeenth century poetical conventions; however, she is able to alter them to what is relevant to her condition.