Malcolm Guite – “Christ and the Poetic Imagination”, 5th December 2020

Malcolm Guite will explore the links and analogies between the working of the poetic imagination
and the understanding of Christ as Word made Flesh. In particular, he will look at how far an
understanding of the Logos, and the doctrine of incarnation may underpin and give grounding to
works of literary art and imagination. Malcolm will look at how Shakespeare’s account of the poetic
imagination in a Midsummer Night’s Dream borrows strongly from the language about incarnation in
John’s Gospel. After developing some of the parallels between the unique mystery of the incarnation
and the continuous mysteries of human creativity and art, Malcolm will then look at how a fresh
encounter with the Doctrine of Christ as Logos became central for Coleridge and led him to a new
theology of imagination. Finally he will look at how Christian Faith clarified and deepened the
imaginative life of some of the Oxford Inklings, particularly CS Lewis.