Heavenly Discourse

Template:Short description Template:Italic title Template:More references Heavenly Discourse is a collection of satirical essays by Charles Erskine Scott Wood, published in 1927.Template:Sfn

PublicationEdit

Wood primarily wrote poetry and serious prose.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn However, Max Eastman and John Reed, co-editors of the radical magazine The Masses,Template:Efn asked him to write something humorous for their periodical. The result was a short satirical attack on World War I named The Heavenly Dialogue, published in 1914. This became the first of a series of similar dialogues.Template:Sfn Ten of these were published in The Masses. Following passage of the Espionage Act of 1917, The Masses was suppressed by the U. S. government on the grounds that it was detrimental to the war effort. Wood continued to write more discourses.Template:Cn After World War I, Max Eastman and others urged publication of the discourses in book form.Template:Sfn In 1927, the Vanguard Press published a collection of forty-one of them under the title Heavenly Discourse.Template:Cn

ContentEdit

The work is primarily a dialogue between Satan and God about contemporary issues. They are presented as friendly adversaries who are often in general agreement.Template:Sfn God represents Wood's own perspective.Template:Sfn A variety of other characters also join the conversation, including angels, Jesus, Buddha, the Czar of Russia, Billy Sunday, Socrates, John Pierpont Morgan, Teddy Roosevelt, Carrie Nation, Sappho, François Rabelais,Template:Sfn Margaret Sanger,Template:Sfn and Mark Twain.Template:Sfn

Politically radical, the essays ridicule war,Template:Sfn prudishness, patriotism, bigotry Template:Sfn and Christian theology.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Instead, they promoted bohemianism, free love, pacifism, socialism,Template:Sfn birth control, and women's rights Template:Specify.Template:Sfn The satire of these essays mocks mainstream society and views it with skepticism.Template:Sfn Titles of some of the discourses include Is God a Jew?, The United States Must Be Pure, and The Stupid Cannot Enter Heaven.Template:Cn Wood wrote Heavenly Discourse from the bourgeois radicalism of Greenwich Village of which he was a part.Template:Sfn

In one of the essays, Billy Sunday meets God, Wood pokes at bourgeois morality by imagining Billy Sunday in Heaven, surprised and disappointed to find people he condemned there. Jesus responds to his complaints, and points out that he associated with drinkers and prostitutes.Template:Sfn

Heavenly discourse is one of very few Western texts from this era to mention the angel Israfil of Arab folklore.Template:Sfn

ReceptionEdit

Although Wood wrote extensively, this was his only work to reach a wide audience.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn The book had a substantial impact on Robert Paul Wolff Template:Sfn and Todd Gitlin.Template:Sfn Some American publications have called it a "classic".Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Kevin Starr wrote in 2002 that Heavenly Discourse now seems "pedestrian and heavy-handed" but affirms that it was daring in its time.Template:Sfn