Making the Heavens Speak: Religion as Poetry

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Peter Sloterdijk (Karlsruhe School of Design) Robert Hughes (Ohio State University)

Making the Heavens Speak

Religion as Poetry

Peter Sloterdijk (Karlsruhe School of Design), Robert Hughes (Ohio State University)

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English

Polity Press
16 December 2022

Philosophy; Religion & beliefs

The idea of a connection between poetry and religion is as old as civilization. Homer consulted the Olympian gods on the fate of the fighters on the plain before Troy, and the poet made the heavenly ones speak. It was through poetry that the gods were brought within reach of human hearing. In the centuries after Homer, the Athenian stage became the setting where gods made their poetic interventions, resolving human impasses and contributing to the emotional synchronization of the public life of the city.

Sloterdijk argues that, as with the culture of the Ancient Greeks, all religions inscribe a kind of “theopoetry” at the heart of their cultural life and thought, even as they strenuously obscure these poetic origins through the cultivation and enforcement of orthodox norms. Sloterdijk also shows how, in conditions of religious pluralism, religions poetically reshape themselves to accommodate the demands of the religious marketplace.

This highly original study of the poetic devices that inform accounts of the otherworldly offers a new interpretation of religious practice and its theological elaboration through history, as well as a fresh perspective on our contemporary age in which collective life, interwoven with imaginative fabrications, is fraying under critical stress.

By: Peter Sloterdijk (Karlsruhe School of Design)
Translated by: Robert Hughes (Ohio State University)
Imprint: Polity Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 231mm, Width: 158mm, Spine: 25mm
Weight: 522g
ISBN: 9781509547494
ISBN 10: 1509547495
Pages: 288
Publication Date: 16 December 2022
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Peter Sloterdijk is Professor of Philosophy and Aesthetics at the Karlsruhe School of Design. Robert Hughes, the translator, is associate professor of English at Ohio State University.

Reviews for Making the Heavens Speak: Religion as Poetry

Religion is poetry, poetry is religion, and both are concerned with the 'overarching' that is at once cosmic and political. The avatars of this triple connectivity, and what happens to it when the overarching becomes paradoxically contested, are brilliantly explored in this new book. Agree with Peter Sloterdijk or not, he will assist you to think further about what is truly fundamental to our human existence and its future. --John Milbank, University of Nottingham