Making the Heavens Speak : Religion as Poetry - Peter Sloterdijk

Making the Heavens Speak

Religion as Poetry

By: Peter Sloterdijk, Robert Hughes (Translator)

Hardcover | 29 March 2023 | Edition Number 1

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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, even if this mostly consisted in conversations among immortals who were by chance overhead by mortals.  In the centuries after Homer, the phenomenon of speaking gods was incorporated into Greek theatre.  The Athenian stage set its storylines into motion before the assembled citizenry and, through the generalizable intelligibility of the action, thereby contributed to the emotional synchronization of the public life of the city.

As with the culture of the Ancient Greeks, the theopoetical founding documents of all religions invoke more or less consciously elaborated literary practices, even when the accompanying dogma serves to obscure these facts. Religions, in Sloterdijk’s view, are literary products with whose help authors compete for clients in the narrow market of attention of the educated.

This highly original study of the poetic devices on which religious narratives draw offers a new interpretation of religion and a new critique of theological documents through history, as well as a fresh perspective on our contemporary age in which narratives, facts and alternative facts compete with one another.

Industry Reviews

"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

"Sloterdijk once again proves to both his followers and his critics that the reputation of his work as a rich set of traditions of intellectual inquiry [. . .] is justified."
—Meta: Research in Hermeneutics, Phenomenology and Practical Philosophy

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