Taliessin Through Logres [And] the Region of the Summer Stars,

by Charles Williams

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802815782
• ISBN13: 9780802815781
• Release Date: January 1974
• Publisher: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.06 lbs.

Customer Reviews

The only blamk verse I read

I really don't like blank verse, yet Williams verse, with its intense focus on the Incarnation, is great. I think it helps to have read his theological works first and to be fairly well read on Arthurian myths, but an some level any Christian should hear "the song of another" Williams bore. One of the three books I really want on a Kindle so I can carry with me.

Invocation, Invitation and Incantation

"The cone's shadow of earth fell into space, and into, other than space, the third heaven. In the third heaven are the living unriven truths, climax tranquil in Venus. Merlin and Brisen heard, as in faint beelike humming round the cone's point, the feeling intellect hasten to fasten on the moving earth's hide. In the third heaven the stones of the waste glimmered like summer stars." That's the only poetry I can recite and I probably got it wrong. It's from Taliessin Through Logres and The Region of the Summer Stars, Williams' two cycles of Arthurian poetry (here in one volume). Without reading C.S.Lewis' commentary in Arthurian Torso (also in this volume)I wouldn't know what he meant, but these lines have something most poetry doesn't; they sound like an incantation, pulsing with power and vision. Like everything Williams wrote, they seem to pull you into another place and the walls between the two worlds dissolve. That's the effect of hearing these poems. Understanding them is another matter. Numerous critics have pointed out that they're rather hard to understand; C.S. Lewis penned his significant commentary in an effort to make Williams' last (and unfinished) poems accessible to a wider audience. He brilliantly succeeded both in opening these poems to the reader and showing how they complement Williams' other writings and echo his ideas. Lewis couldn't keep these two cycles from going out of print, but this Eerdmans volume, scarce as it is, gives credence to Williams' self-penned epitaph, "Poet, Under the Mercy."

The deepest, most richly-layered poetry I have ever read.

This poetry takes some time to master, but it is well worth the effort. It recounts the rise and fall of Arthur's kingdom from the point of view of Taliessin, the court poet. The non-linear lyric pieces are a perfection of the craft; especial standouts are "Taliessin's Song of the Unicorn," and "The Queen's Servant." Perhaps if enough people become familiar with this hard-to-find classic, it will reappear in print! All lovers of Arthuriana: this is a must. Tawny M. Goswitz