Poetry and Prophecy

This 1952 book is an inquiry into the relations in origin between literature and inspiration.

N. Kershaw Chadwick (Author)

9781107689510, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 30 June 2011

142 pages
20.4 x 12.8 x 0.9 cm, 0.18 kg

This 1952 book is an inquiry into the relations in origin between literature and inspiration, based on a study of the practices of seers in modern communities where oral literature sill survives, and of the records of primitive poetry in the West and North. Mrs Chadwick discusses the universal reverence accorded to poets, musicians, seers, or prophets, the training they underwent, the methods of ecstasy, and the remarkable similarities of their messages in remote and different parts of the world.

Preface
1. Poetic inspiration and the trance of the seer: the evidence of Early Europe
2. The trance of the seer: the evidence of modern oral literature
3. Inspiration: the seer's call, and his artistic and spiritual gifts
4. The Mantic technique and the artificial regulation of ecstasy
5. Ritual and magic, and their relationship to the Mantic tradition
6. The spiritual journeys of the seer.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography [JHMC]