Given his ethical concerns, it is not surprising that Peterson devotes the first section of his book to writers considered the moral consciences of society, a view developed during the nineteenth century when a "
vatic notion of prophecy was incorporated into the new historiography" that, in turn, allowed "the creative author to become a kind of alternate historian" (277-78).
IL
VATIC ANO CADE: The English title of this play by American writer Frank J.
On this traditional account, the Pentateuch was not to be read primarily as an account of Israelite history, but rather as an allegorized prophecy of Jesus's birth, death, and resurrection; its laws were not to be studied as the regulations of an actual human community, but rather as
vatic intimations of the Christian sacraments." Protestant scholars, by contrast, "were much more likely to regard the Hebrew Bible as worthy of study on its own terms." This meant reading the first five books of Moses as, quite literally, an account of a political constitution--the Hebrew republic--as worthy of study as Athens or Rome.
I'm less enchanted when she tries for a
vatic quality by making lists of single words: "but blinded / guilty/ orphaned/ or crushed of bound but witnessed / Or failed / or foretold." But when she's direct and clear, she wields power.
The references to Crassus and the donning of the
vatic persona in Propertius can be explained by the poet's wish to speak about his own poetry and the political events related in it.
In "The
Vatic Penitent: John Audelay's Self-Representation," Meyer-Lee draws out the details of Audelay's scant biography further and argues that "Audelay's book, therefore, in aim, literary form, and material realization may be understood as the codicological equivalent of a perpetual chantry chapel, although with two crucial changes: in the codex he takes the place of Lord Lestrange, and the reader takes his place" (67).
, spoken in the
vatic tone of one who may have accompanied MLK Jr.
As a poet, he is essentially a lyric artist with a deep vein of musicality and a penchant for
vatic symbolism that for many years has been anchored in Jewish thought and Jewish lore.
I consulted a clairvoyant in Los Angeles, and I asked this cucumber-shaped
vatic if angels really had no lives of their own.
But, Jaeger says, those who have skill as investors don't exploit market inefficiencies or use
vatic powers to see tomorrow's stock market.
The poet's assertion simply is not born out by a reading of his poem: Tiresias possesses neither the authority that Eliot would ascribe to him in his notes nor the ordering,
vatic role that Browning granted his Pope in The Ring and the Book.
