Mini-Book Review: The Legend of Death by John Milbank

Last updated on: February 10, 2014 at 3:10 pm by David Russell Mosley

Mini-Book Review: The Legend of Death by John Milbank 2014-02-10T15:10:42-04:00 David Russell Mosley

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

David Russell Mosley

10 February 2014

On the Edge of Elfland

Beeston, Nottinghamshire

Dear Friends and Family,

Here’s a relatively brief book review I’ve written for John Milbank’s The Legend of Death: Two Poetic Sequences. Eugene: Cascade Books, 2008.

Readers familiar with John Milbank’s work, particularly essays he has written but also books like The Word Made Strange and Beyond Secular Order (which I’ll be reviewing in the next few days), will not be surprised that John desires poetry and desires that it be written to express metaphysical and theological truths. What readers may be unaware of, however, is that John is a poet himself.

The Legend of Death is John’s second published book of poetry, that I know of, his first being The Mercurial Wood (which I haven’t read, yet). This book is written, like much of John’s work nowadays, in two sequences. The first sequence, On the Diagonal: Metaphysical Landscapes, is a series of what appear to be primarily occasional poems about the Nottinghamshire and Virginia landscapes. These poems, however, are not mere descriptions (though I’m sure they would be lovely if they were) but also reflections on the metaphysical. John writes poems with titles such as ‘Hymn to Iamblichus on May Morning’, ‘Cosmos’, and ‘On the Lizard’. This collection is both and fun and profound, often within the same poem.

In the second sequence, The Legend of Death, which gives the book its title, Milbank fuses together bits of mythology, theology, and geography taking his readers on trip beginning in the other Britain, Brittany, and working his way into Britain itself in a relatively northward moving pattern. Thus the poems here collected shift from the Celtic and Arthurian to the Nordic/Anglo-Saxon world of Woden. In these poems John gives us what I can almost describe as death as life. A single reading is not enough to plum the depths.

Accompanying each sequence are two essays wherein Milbank lays out the theoretical and theory of poetics behind the poems in each sequence.

In the end, Milbank has proven himself to this reader not simply a poetical person, but a poet. True, Milbank is not, perhaps a perfect poet, but I am not a good critic to tell you why. For my own tastes, I tend to prefer poetry with more structure, more intentional rhythm, meter, and rhyme, but can attest that this is terribly difficult poetry to write well. What Milbank does very well in these poems, however, is to dare theologians and philosophers to poetise, that is to write poetry. Oh this may not have been even remotely a goal of his (though I intend to ask him), but nevertheless, Milbank here reminds us implicitly that Christianity (and Judaism) is the the religion of the Psalms, the religion of Poets (like Gregory of Nazianzus, Ephrem the Syrian, Dante, the Pearl Poet, Milton, Donne and so many others). Milbank reminds us that the best theology and best theologians ought often, though not always, also be poets. Even should you hate the poetry contained within these pages, if you call yourself a theologian or a philosopher, let this book remind you that we are a poetical people, that we are poems ourselves, created by the Poet of the Cosmos (though not in the Whiteheadian sense).

Sincerely yours,

David Russell Mosley

Book Reviews

Literature and Poetry

Previous Post

February 5, 2014

Creation Debates: Why Bill Nye and Ken Ham Both Get It Wrong

Next Post

February 11, 2014 Mini-Book Review: Beyond Secular Order by John Milbank

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category A Secular Age Advent Apologetics Atheism Beauty Being a Catholic Evangelical Being Catholic Being Deified: Poetry and Fantasy on the Path to God Blogging Book Reviews C. S. Lewis Catholic Imagination Catholic Social Teaching Catholicism Christmas Church Calendar Church Fathers Church Life Community Conferences Cosmology Creation Curdled Words Deification Distributism Easter Economics Education Epiphany Essay Extracts Eucharist Faerie Faeriean Metaphysics Fatherhood Films Folk Liturgy Food and Drink G. K. Chesterton Harry Potter J. R. R. Tolkien Jove King Arthur Language Lent Life Literature and Poetry Liturgy Medieval Theology Music My Publications Mythology On the Edges of Elfland Ordinary Time Ordination Parenthood Parish Patristic Theology Pentecost Politics Prayer Racism Radical Orthodoxy Restoration Movement Sacramental Ontology Saints Science Sex and Sexuality Sophiology Stories The Inklings The Radical Catholic Reimagination of Everything Theologians in the Church Theopoetics Thesis Research Uncategorized University of Nottingham What I'm Reading Writing

Select a Month December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 July 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz