Kinesis, Kenosis, and the Weakness of Poetry
Year of Publication |
2009 |
Author |
|
Academic Department |
Revue LISA/LISA e-journal |
Volume |
7 |
Number |
3 |
Pages |
35-49 |
Language |
English |
section |
25 May 2009 |
Keywords |
decreation |
Annotation |
Kilgore-Caradec looks at the use of the words kinesis and kenosis in the work of the poet Geoffrey Hill. She discusses Weil’s concept of decreation in relation to Hill’s collection of poems titled Tenebrae published in 1965. Kilgore-Caradec goes on to note similarities between statements attributed to Joan of Arc, in Hill’s Mystery of the Charity of Charles Péguy and Weil’s explanation for her reluctance to join the Catholic Church found in her letter to Father Perrin in 1942. Especially significant here, Kilgore-Caradec says, are the notions of ‘silent’ and ‘nothing’. Further on in the essay Kilgore-Caradec links some of Weil’s statements about uprootedness in her work The Need for Roots to Hill’s work, The Triumph of Love. Kilgore-Caradec also notes an affinity of Hill’s ‘theology of suffering’ to Weil’s ‘heaviness’ or gravity. The essay concludes with two quotations, the first taken again from Weil’s letter to Father Perrin in 1942. |
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