An introduction to Christianity making use of The Divine Comedy and Paradise Lost. Goes into nearly everything-theology, story, history, ethics, mindset, rules, rituals, conflicts-from takeoff points in the poems. Explains things that puzzle people about this religion. Shows differences between old and new, Medieval and Renaissance, Catholic and Protestant. Shows the origins of problems and reviews solutions. Presents the technical side of Christianity, with diagrams of the universe, a chart of the Great Chain of Being, and graphs of Adam and Eve's Fall. Assumes little previous knowledge....

The great poets of the past, we find in this book, deliver more wisdom about love and marriage than anyone writing today: Christian love without any Puritan undertow, love closer to the Romans than to the Victorians, love still represented by Eros - what Spenser and Milton and Herrick show us on the way to deeper and deeper insights into both Christianity and love. With the wit and profundity of a seasoned university teacher Swardson treats inhibition, animality, spirituality, the higher eroticism, seduction, fornication, guilt, the double standard, purity, male chastity, gender equality,...