Word, Image, and the Drama of Conversion in The Burning Babe by Robert Southwell

ABSTRACT: In my paper I wish to foreground the dramatic aspect of Robert Southwell’s best known poem, “The Burning Babe”. Following the pattern set in Ignatian meditation, the poet presents us with a vision which combines references to Moses’s encounter with God speaking from the burning bush with the New Testament accounts of the Nativity and the Passion. The scene presented in Southwell’s poem is not unlike the one depicted in “The Dream of the Rood,” where the Cross, shining aloft, narrates the story of Christ’s victorious battle on Golgotha. In addition to both poems’ visual appeal, the reader's attention is also focused on the voice, the message articulated by the Divine Interlocutor, and the drama of the speaker’s conversion.

Małgorzata Grzegorzewska is a member of the Power of the Word Project Advisory Board. She is Professor of Literature in the Faculty of Artes Liberales, University of Warsaw. Her work explores the connections among literature, philosophy and theology.