Includes bibliographical references and index.

Poetry and the voice of God -- Paraphrase and theater: Bonaventure's retracing the arts to theology and literary evangelism -- Quotation and inflection: Dante and Chaucer on The sermon on the mount -- Egyptian gold: biblical transformations of Ovid in The Canterbury tales -- Irony and misreading: courtly love and marriage according to henry viii -- Poetry in preaching, prayer, and pastoral care: John Donne and George Herbert -- Habitual music: the influence on poets of the King James Bible -- Conclusion and form for the person in modern poetry -- The conversion poems of Margaret Avison -- Meditation and gratitude: the enduringly beautiful changes of Richard Wilbur -- Epiphanies of a father's love: Anthony Hecht and Gjertrud Schnackenberg -- Appendix: can Faustus be saved? the fragile future of our common book.

"A highly acclaimed professor of literature opens up the treasury of biblical tradition among the English poets, both past and present, showing them to be fine interpreters of Scripture who are well attuned to its music"-- Provided by publisher.