O Holy Night!: Masterworks of Christmas Poetry by Johann M. Moser
Poet Johann Moser has collected poems about Christmas from his research all over the world. The works are all translated into English, by Moser except where noted. Christmas is certainly a popular topic so Moser has chosen poems "with the highest degree of artistic merit and interest." [p. xi] The book has four sections--Advent, the Virgin Mary, Bethlehem, and the Magi. The book has over eighty works, so there is bound to be something to the reader's taste, though all are interesting.
The chronological breadth of the collection is amazing. There is even one poem from before Christ--an excerpt from Virgil's Fourth Eclogue which many consider to be a pagan prophecy of Jesus's birth. The rest are taken seemingly from every century A.D. A handful are passages from the Old and New Testaments that have a poetic tone. Some are from saints like Augustine, John of the Cross, and Teresa of Jesus. Many are from noted poets like Milton, Dante, Chaucer, and T. S. Eliot. Some of the works are from homilies that have high literary value. The variety is astounding and the words are beautiful.
An appendix lists sources for other volumes of poetry if the reader wants to dig deeper in a particular author or a particular theme.
Recommended.
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