Redcrosse: Remaking Religious Poetry for Today's World [Paperback]

Do poetry and criticism matter in today's world?
How can the poetry of the past help us tackle the changing nature of religious faith and national identity?

This book explores the creation ofRedcrosse, a new poetic liturgy for St George's Day and a unique collaborative work written by the critic Ewan Fernie, the theologian Andrew Shanks and the major
contemporary poets Jo Shapcott, Michael Symmons Roberts and Andrew Motion. Leading writers - including John Milbank, Salley Vickers and Sarah Apetrei, together with authors ofRedcrosseitself - reflect on the creation of the liturgy and its central inspiration, Edmund Spenser's epic Renaissance poem,The Faerie Queene, as well as on its two premieres in St George's Chapel, Windsor and Manchester Cathedral, and its sometimes controversial public reception.

Including the full text ofRedcrosse, the volume triumphantly shows that a new poetic work really can address some of the most pressing concerns of our time.

Leading poets, critics and theologians explore the writing of a new poetic liturgy and how a creative work can confront issues of faith and 'Englishness'.Ewan Fernie is Professor and Chair of Shakespeare Studies at the Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham, UK. He is the author ofShame in Shakespeare, the editor ofSpiritual Shakespearesand general editor (with Simon Palfrey) of theShakespeare Now!series.

The Redcrosse project has demonstrated how true liturgy is a quest for liturgy and a continuing self-questioning. It cannot evade the specificity of place and circumstance, even though these might lean towards bias: being reconciled to the tendril of our own path is our only way to attain a specific glimpse of the universal. So here the ambivalent legacy of the English Red Cross and the cult of St George are embraced and yet ritually purged with the help of the mythopoeic vision of Edmund Spenser: the blood oflCI