Harts writing style benefits from his poets ear, and Poetry and Revelation contains passages of great lyrical beauty as well as intellectual weight Such passages demonstrate a harmonious marriage of academic virtuosity and beautiful writing, which gives the lie to any ill-judged claim that the relationship between poetry, philosophy, and religion is a zero-sum game. * Los Angeles Review of Books *
Few scholars can claim the sort of wide-ranging expertise that we see in the work of Kevin Hart. He has made substantial contributions to Continental philosophy, Christian theology, and literary criticism, and, in addition to this academic work, he is one of todays finest Australian poets. In his new book Poetry and Revelation, we see these many elements together in one place. The result is a volume that conveys, perhaps better than any single previous publication, the scope of his scholarly interests and the ambition of his constructive project for extending the application of phenomenology in the Husserlian style to literary and theological material. * Literature and Theology *
[T]his is a substantial contribution to the study of religious poetry, one which broadens and deepens the field of the phenomenology of religion. * International Journal for Philosophy of Religion *
Poetry and Revelation, a profound investigation into the relationship between poetry and religion, gives me a new vision of the Australian poet-critic Kevin Hart. One need not agree with his arguments. I for one do not. But that does not matter. In a long lifetime of trying to understand the vexed relationship between the imagination and revelation, I have arrived at the judgment that they are antithetical to one another. Hart argues the reverse. He does it with surpassing love for poetry, and with a poignant personal experience of Christian inwardness. His readings of Hopkins, Geoffrey Hill, Charles Wright, and of the Australian poets A.D. Hope, Judith Wright, and Robert Gray are fresh and invigorating. He is equally perceptive on the poetry of Jaccottet and Montale. Hart breaks new ground for all of us. -- Harold Bloom, Sterling Professor of the Humanities and English, Yale University, USA
Poetry and Revelation shows all of the virtues weve come to associate with the writings of Kevin Hart: deep learning, exegetical brio, passionate attentiveness to the subtlest movements and capabilities of verse. In its close readings and larger argumentative contentions the book, like its central subject, is a constant source of surprise and revelation. -- Ian Donaldson, Honorary Professorial Fellow in the School of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne, Australia
