New Spins on Old Scriptures: Richard Wilbur and Elizabeth Bishop

Abstract: With fresh spins on familiar scriptural allusions, Richard Wilbur and Elizabeth Bishop engage in what he calls “palace revolutions” against totalization, turning to proven models to invent a style that negotiates a reconciliation between contemporary spiritual trends and America’s Judeo-Christian legacy. Neither of them is predictably on one side or the other of any divide between faith and doubt. As heirs to the Christian West’s literary tradition, they translate Creation with a new vocabulary that integrates vintage natural theology, as exemplified by Wordsworth, into their poetry for readers anywhere in the range of belief and unbelief in a secular age.