Christian poetry – essentials
Original list
- Psalms | Hebrew / Israel | Foundational prayer-poetry for nearly all Christian traditions
- The Divine Comedy | Dante Alighieri | Medieval Catholic theological epic
- The Temple: Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations | George Herbert | Anglican devotional and metaphysical poetry; Herbert’s The Temple was published posthumously in 1633 and became a major model for later sacred poets
- Paradise Lost | John Milton | Protestant biblical epic
- Hymns on Paradise / Hymns on the Nativity | Ephrem the Syrian | Syriac theological hymn-poetry; hundreds of hymns are attributed to Ephrem, with major cycles including On Paradise and On the Nativity.
- Kontakia / Hymns of Repentance Romanos the Melodist | Byzantine dramatic hymn-poetry; Romanos is known for the kontakion, a sung poetic sermon with dramatic features
- Cathemerinon / Psychomachia volume 1 volume 2 | Prudentius | Latin Christian hymn and allegorical poetry
- The Complete Poems | St. John of the Cross | Carmelite mystical poetry; modern bilingual editions gather poems including “Dark Night” and the Spiritual Canticle.
- Laude | Jacopone * da Todi | Franciscan vernacular mystical and penitential poetry
- Holy Sonnets | John Donne | Anglican metaphysical devotional poetry
- Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins selection | Gerard Manley Hopkins | Jesuit modern sacred lyric; Hopkins is regularly treated as pivotal for modern English religious poetry.
- [[Goblin Market and Other Poems / Devotional Poemsas PB | Christina Rossetti | Anglican devotional, biblical, and eschatological poetry
- Hymns and Sacred Poems(multi-volume) | Charles Wesley | Methodist hymn-poetry
- Olney Hymns | John Newton and William Cowper | Evangelical hymn-poetry; includes major devotional and penitential verse
- The Dream of the Rood / Old English Christian Poems | Anonymous | Early vernacular cross-centered poetry; alongside Cædmon, Old English Christian poetry gave England a major vernacular religious poetic tradition.
- Cædmon’s Hymn and related Old English sacred verse | Cædmon / Anglo-Saxon tradition | Foundational English Christian poetry; Britannica calls Cædmon the first Old English Christian poet.
- The Pearl | Anonymous Medieval Christian dream-vision poetry
- Hildegard von Bingen’s Symphonia** | Hildegard of Bingen | Benedictine visionary hymn-poetry
- The Cherubinic Wanderer | Angelus Silesius | Catholic mystical epigrammatic poetry
- The Spiritual Poems | Mechthild of Magdeburg | Beguine mystical poetic prose and lyric theology
- Akathist Hymns and Orthodox hymn-poetry | Byzantine / Orthodox tradition | Liturgical praise-poetry, especially Marian and festal hymnody
- The Dream Songs / Prayers and Poems related| Symeon the New Theologian | Eastern Orthodox mystical lyric and hymnody
- The Spiritual Poetry of Francisco de Quevedo / Luis de León | Spanish Golden Age poets | Catholic biblical, ascetic, and contemplative poetry
- Russian Orthodox Spiritual Poems | Khomyakov, Lermontov, Solovyov, others | Orthodox-inflected lyric, prayer, and philosophical poetry
- Selected Poems / Collected Poems | T. S. Eliot | Modernist Christian poetry, especially Ash-Wednesday and Four Quartets |
Additional entries
- Four Birds of Noah’s Ark: A Prayer Book from the Time of Shakespeare ]] Dekker, Thomas, and Robert Hudson. Eerdmans, 2017.
- The Poems of St. Paulinus of Nola Edited by Johannes Quasten et al., Translated by P. G. Walsh, vol. 40, Newman Press, 1975.
- Jesus Poems Craig, David. Resource Publications, 2018.
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