Description
Language in the Liturgy is an historically-based, linguistically-focused account of the development of liturgical language in English in the Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches over the past half-century. It analyses issues of style and expression in a wide range of texts, setting this analysis within larger contexts of ecclesiastical and societal change since the 1970s. The Book of Common Prayer is taken as the benchmark of classical liturgical composition in English, not only because it was the first liturgy to be composed in the language, but also because of the universally acknowledged beauty of it. Professor Spurr makes a detailed comparative and analytical linguistic study of the Prayer Book and the liturgies composed in English in the modern idiom. He argues for a ‘renewal of the renewal’ by the restoration of an appropriate solemnity and sacredness of linguistic expression, as exemplified in the traditional Prayer Book rites. The book also includes chapters on the role of music and of silence in worship. This stimulating study will be of interest to all concerned about the future direction of liturgies in English in the Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches.
About the Author
Barry Spurr was a member of the English Department at Sydney University for forty years, and was Australia’s first Professor of Poetry. He has published extensively on Renaissance and Modernist poetry, religious literature and liturgical language. His internationally-acclaimed study of T.S. Eliot’s Christianity, Anglo-Catholic in Religion, is the standard account of its subject. Professor Spurr is currently Literary Editor of Quadrant.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1 The Language of Liturgy
2 The Book of Common Prayer
3 Anglican Liturgy Today
4 Roman Catholic Liturgy Today
5 Music in Liturgy
6 Feminisation and Infantilisation of Liturgy
7 Silence and Stillness
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
Endorsements and Reviews
This book encourages Anglicans and Roman Catholics alike to trust in the words of liturgies which have stood the test of time, and to invest themselves in language which has been purified in the fire of faithful praying. The linguistic richness and semantic density of religious language is an icon of faith itself; and Barry Spurr has produced a passionate apologia for the living stones of language which, by staying still instead of rolling, have gathered layers of truth and power which newer, plainer words cannot rival. Dr Carolyn Hammond, Dean, Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge
As only a devoted reader of poetry can, Barry Spurr illuminates the many splendors of Cranmer’s prayer book and the “old rite” from which it draws; and, with the mordant thoroughness of a prosecuting lawyer, uncovers the blunders, confusions, evasions, infantilizations, and serial diminishments of over a century of liturgical “reform” in the Catholic and Anglican worlds. If you value liturgy, you will prize this book. Kevin Hart, Jo Rae Wright University Distinguished Professor at Duke Divinity School
Spurr has demonstrated past all gainsaying that the use of a “high language” in liturgy—which comprises not only speech but also music, vesture, regulated actions—is no mere aesthetic fancy but a constitutive element of identity, piety, catechesis, and fervor… Spurr’s razor-sharp critique and his animated apologia place us doubly in his debt. Dr Peter Kwasniewski, author of The Once and Future Roman Rite
Spurr’s well-researched, comprehensive account… a compelling perspective on what liturgical language should aspire to… any church or denomination that takes liturgy seriously would profit from a careful perusal of this book. Dr Louis Groarke, Philosophy Department, St Francis Xavier University, Nova Scotia, Canada
