Spring's former fruit : a thematic study of biblical creation myths in poetry

• Main Author: Tan, Zachary Kang Hui
• Other Authors: Richard Alan Barlow
• Format: Theses and Dissertations
• Language: English
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: DRNTU::Humanities
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/72528
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

This paper is a thematic study of Biblical creation as it appears in poetry, whether more tangibly as a subject treated directly, or more intangibly, lurking beneath the surface of a poem but nevertheless influences the rationale of its origin. Some of the poets examined in this paper include, William Wordsworth, G.M. Hopkins, W.B. Yeats, Dylan Thomas, Edwin Muir, and Wallace Stevens. The study necessarily begins with Paradise Lost, being the most comprehensive and total response to the creation myth in English. From this, we will consider Romantic responses to Milton, both as a way for them to engage mythic content in a direct and true way, as well as in the formation of their ideas regarding the poet’s role. Next, we will consider how these ideas develop according to the more cynical outlook of Modern society, as poets shift their focus onto more negative and potentially harmful aspects of the creation myth. This author hopes that such a study will serve as a basis for comparing poets not often compared. It also hopes that by tracking the development of thought in relation to myth, we might uncover new ways to approach well-known poets not only by their subject matter, but also the intrinsic rationale behind their poems.