Making the Heavens Speak

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The idea of a connection between poetry and religion is as old as civilization. Homer consulted the Olympian gods on the fate of the fighters on the plain before Troy, and the poet made the heavenly ones speak. It was through poetry that the gods were brought within reach of human hearing, even if this mostly consisted in conversations among immortals who were by chance overhead by mortals. In the centuries after Homer, the phenomenon of speaking gods was incorporated into Greek theatre. The Athenian stage set its storylines into motion before the assembled citizenry and, through the generalizable intelligibility of the action, thereby contributed to the emotional synchronization of the public life of the city. As with the culture of the Ancient Greeks, the theopoetical founding documents of all religions invoke more or less consciously elaborated literary practices, even when the accompanying dogma serves to obscure these facts. Religions, in Sloterdijk's view, are literary products with whose help authors compete for clients in the narrow market of attention of the educated. This highly original study of the poetic devices on which religious narratives draw offers a new interpretation of religion and a new critique of theological documents through history, as well as a fresh perspective on our contemporary age in which narratives, facts and alternative facts compete with one another.