Dragons’ Keep

Once upon a time, there were dragons in the psalms, singing praises to God. 

And then the translators came along and declared the dragons to have been sea-monsters (or whales) 

and the mysteries that they guarded mere fantasies of the imagination. 

We, however, know that the dragons were real. 

This is a reading list for Christians who believe in dragons

and who want to learn to summon them again through poetry and art.

For advanced dragon training, visit the Dragon Common Room. [ON BREAK FOR SPRING 2021]

For background reading on Christianity and the history of the West, go to “What to Read?”

For the battle-song of the Dragon, see “Dragon Song.”

For an introduction to our poetry work, see “Up, drakes! It’s time for tea—and prosody!”

Basic Toolkit

• A copy of the Bible, preferably Douay-Rheims translation The Holy Bible. Douay-Rheims Version. Translated from the Latin Vulgate. The Old Testament: First published by the English College at Douay, A.D. 1609. The New Testament: First published by the English College at Rheims, A.D. 1582 (Charlotte, N.C.: Saint Benedict Press, 2009) 
• A thesaurus  Roget’s International Thesaurus. 8th edition, revised and updated, ed. Barbara Ann Kipfer (New York: Harper-Collins, 2019)
• A rhyming dictionary Frances Stillman, The Poet’s Manual and Rhyming Dictionary (London: Thames and Hudson, 1965)
• A workbook Stephen Fry, The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within (London: Arrow Books, 2005)
• A practice Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way: A Course in Discovering and Recovering Your Creative Self (New York: Jeremy Tarcher, 1992)
• An anthology of poetry in English Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, The Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1918. 2nd edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1939)
• A translation of the psalms The Poets’ Book of Psalms: The Complete Psalter as Rendered by Twenty-Five Poets from the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Centuries, ed. Laurance Wieder (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995)

Gemstones

• Ephrem the Syrian, Hymns, trans. Kathleen E. McVey (New York: Paulist Press, 1989)
• The Complete Old English Poems, trans. Craig Williamson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017)
• The Heliand: The Saxon Gospel, trans. G. Ronald Murphy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992)
• Anselm of Canterbury, Prayers and Meditations with the Proslogion, trans. Benedicta Ward (London: Penguin Classics, 1979)
• Francis of Assisi, The Geste of the Great King: Office of the Passion, ed. Laurent Gallant and Andre Cirino (St. Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan Institute, 2001)
• Alfonso el Sabio, Cantigas de Santa Maria, trans. Kathleen Kulp-Hill (Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2000)
• Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy, La Vita Nuova—many translations! 
• Frauenlob’s Song of Songs: A Medieval German Poet and his Masterpiece, ed. and trans. Barbara Newman (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2007)
• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, Sir Orfeo, trans. J.R.R.Tolkien (New York: Del Rey, 1979).
• York Mystery Plays: A Selection in Modern Spelling, ed. Richard Beadle and Pamela King (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975)
• Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene
• William Shakespeare, Plays: Furness Variorum for the full footnotes; Folger for more readable editions
• John Donne, Poems
• George Herbert, Poems
• John Milton, Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained
• Alexander Pope, Rape of the Lock and Other Major Writings, ed. Leo Damrosch (London: Penguin Classics, 2011)
• Charles Wesley, Hymns
• Gerard Manley Hopkins, Mortal Beauty, God’s Grace: Major Poems and Spiritual Writings, ed. John F. Thornton and Susan B. Varenne (New York: Vintage, 2003)
• G.K. Chesterton, Lepanto, ed. Dale Ahlquist (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004)
• T.S. Eliot, The Wasteland, Four Quartets
• Dorothy Sayers, The Man Born to Be King (Camp Hill, PA: Classical Academic Press, 1943)
• J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lays of Beleriand (History of Middle Earth 3), ed. Christopher Tolkien (New York: Del Rey, 1985)
• Dana Gioia, Poems

Keys to the Christian imagination

• Origen of Alexandria, An Exhortation to Martyrdom, Prayer, and Selected Works, trans. Rowan A. Greer (New York: Paulist Press, 1979)
• Augustine of Hippo, Confessions—many translations!
• Augustine of Hippo, The City of God Against the Pagans—many translations!
• Augustine of Hippo, Exposition of the Psalms, trans. Maria Boulding, 6 vols. (New York: New City Press, 2000-2004)
• John Cassian, Conferences, Institutes—many translations!
• Benedict of Nursia, Rule for Monks—many translations!
• Gregory the Great, Moralia in Job, trans. James Bliss, 3 vols. (Reprinted by Ex Fontibus, 2012)
• Pseudo-Dionysius, The Celestial and Ecclesiastical Hierarchy of Dionysius the Areopagite, trans. John Parker (London: Skeffington and Son, 1894)
• Bernard of Clairvaux, On the Song of Songs I-IV, trans. Kilian J. Walsh and Irene M. Edmonds (Kalamazoo, Mich: Cistercian Publications, 1971, 1983, 1979, and 1980)
• Hugh of St. Victor, On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith, trans. Roy J. Deferrari, 2nd ed. (Reprinted by Ex Fontibus, 2016)
• Richard of St. Victor, The Book of the Patriarchs, The Mystical Ark, trans. Grover A. Zinn (New York: Paulist Press, 1979)
• Guigo II the Carthusian, Ladder of Monks and Twelve Meditations, trans. Edmund Collegde and James Walsh (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1981)
• Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints, trans. William Granger Ryan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012)
• Bonaventure, The Journey of the Mind to God, trans. Philotheus Boehner (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1993)
• William Durandus, Rationale Divinorum Officiorum (Fons Vitae, 2007)
• Henry Suso, Wisdom’s Watch Upon the Hours, trans. Edmund Colledge (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2013)
• The Cloud of Unknowing, trans. James Walsh (New York: Paulist Press, 1981)
• The Bible of the Poor: A Facsimile Edition, trans. Albert C. Labriola and John W. Smeltz (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1990)
• Thomas of Kempen, The Imitation of Christ, trans. Richard Challoner (Charlotte, N.C.: Tan Books, 2013)
• John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul—many translations!
• Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises, trans. Louis J. Puhl (Chicago: Loyola Press, 1968)
• Kenelm Henry Digby, The Broad-Stone of Honour: Or, the True Sense and Practice of Chivalry (Forgotten Books, 2018) 
• Thomas Merton, The Seven Story Mountain: An Autobiography of Faith (New York: Harcourt, 1999)
• Meditation on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism, trans. Robert Powell (New York: TarcherPerigee, 2002)

Flowers of the Christian Imagination

• Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias, trans. Mother Columba Hart and Jane Bishop (New York: Paulist Press, 1990)
• Elisabeth of Schönau, The Complete Works, ed. Anne Clark (New York: Paulist Press, 2000)
• Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival, trans. A.T. Hatto (London: Penguin Classics, 1980)
• Hadewijch, The Complete Works, trans. Mother Columba Hart (New York: Paulist Press, 1980)
• Gertrude the Great of Helfta, The Herald of Divine Love, trans. Margaret Winkwork (New York: Paulist Press, 1980)
• Mechthild of Magdeburg, The Flowing Light of the Godhead, trans. Frank Tobin (New York: Paulist Press, 1997)
• Mechthild of Hackeborn, The Book of Special Grace, trans. Barbara Newman (New York: Paulist Press, 2017)
• Marguerite Porete, The Mirror of Simple Souls—many translations!
• Catherine of Siena, The Dialogue, trans. Suzanne Noffke (New York: Paulist Press, 1980)
• Birgitta of Sweden, Revelations, ed. Bridget Morris, trans. Denis Searby, 4 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006-2015)
• Julian of Norwich, Showings, trans. Edmund Colledge and James Walsh (New York: Paulist Press, 1977)
• Christine de Pisan, The Book of the City of Ladies, trans. Rosalind Brown-Grant (London: Penguin Classics, 2000) 
• Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle—many translations!
• Sor Maria de Jesus de Agreda, Mystical City of God, trans. Fiscar Marison, 4 vols. (Chicago: Theopolitan, 1914)
• John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress—many editions!
• Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe—many editions!
• G. K. Chesterton, Father Brown Stories, The Man Who Was Thursday, The Man Who Knew Too Much
• Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited
• J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion, The Lord of the Rings
• C.S. Lewis, The Space Trilogy, The Chronicles of Narnia, Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold
• Ursula K. Leguin, The Earthsea Cycle 
• Vox Day, Summa Elvetica: A Casuistry of the Elvish Controversy (Castalia House, 2017)

Guides to the Christian Imagination

• Ann W. Astell, Eating Beauty: The Eucharist and the Spiritual Arts of the Middle Ages (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006)
• Erich Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, trans. Willard R. Trask (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953)
• Owen Barfield, Poetic Diction: A Study in Meaning (Middleton: Wesleyan University Press, 1984)
• Margaret Barker, Temple Themes in Christian Worship (London: T&T Clark, 2007)
• Caroline Walker Bynum, Christian Materiality: An Essay on Religion in Late Medieval Europe (New York: Zone Books, 2011)
• Stratford Caldecott, Beauty for Truth’s Sake: On the Re-enchantment of Education (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2009)
• Stratford Caldecott, Beauty in the Word: Rethinking the Foundations of Education (Tacoma, WA: Angelico Press, 2012)
• Stratford Caldecott, The Power of the Ring: The Spiritual Vision Behind the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit, 2nd ed. (Chestnut Ridge, NY: Crossroad, 2012)
• Mary Carruthers, The Craft of Thought: Meditation, Rhetoric, and the Making of Images, 400-1200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998)
• Mary Carruthers, The Experience of Beauty in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014)
• Jane Chance, Tolkien’s Art: A Mythology for England (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2001)
• Christopher de Hamel, Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts: Twelve Journeys into the Medieval World (London: Penguin, 2017)
• Henri de Lubac, Medieval Exegesis: The Four Senses of Scripture, trans. Marc Sebanc and E.M. Macierowski,  3 vols. (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1998-2009)
• Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England 1400-1580, 2nd ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005)
• Anthony Esolen, Ironies of Faith: The Laughter at the Heart of Christian Literature (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2007)
• Margot Fassler, Gothic Song: Victorian Sequences and Augustinian Reform in Twelfth-Century Paris, 2nd ed. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2011)
• Verlyn Flieger, Splintered Light: Logos and Language in Tolkien’s World, rev. ed. (Kent: Kent State University Press, 2002)
• Northrop Frye, The Great Code: The Bible and Literature (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1981)
• Northrop Frye, Words with Power: Being a Second Study of the Bible and Literature (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1990)
• Rachel Fulton [Brown], From Judgment to Passion: Devotion to Christ and the Virgin Mary 800-1200 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002)
• Rachel Fulton Brown, Mary and the Art of Prayer: The Hours of the Virgin in Medieval Christian Life and Thought (New York: Columbia University Press, 2017)
• Rachel Fulton Brown, Milo Chronicles: Devotions 2016-2019 (New York: Dangerous Books, 2019)
• Joseph Goering, The Virgin and the Grail: Origins of a Legend (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005)
• Andrew Greeley, Myths of Religion (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 1989)
• Paul J. Griffiths, Religious Reading: The Place of Reading in the Practice of Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999)
• Dom Prosper Gueranger, The Liturgical Year, 15 vols. (1841- ) [paperback]
• Malcolm Guite, Faith, Hope and Poetry: Theology and the Poetic Imagination (New York: Routledge, 2017)
• Jeffrey Hamburger, The Rothschild Canticles: Art and Mysticism in Flanders and the Rhineland circa 1300 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991)
• Jean Hani, Divine Craftsmanship: Preliminaries to a Spirituality of Work (Kettering, OH: Angelico Press, 2016)
• Tom Holland, Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World (New York: Basic Books, 2019)
• Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture (1955)
• Jean Leclercq, The Love of Learning and the Desire for God: A Study of Monastic Culture, 3rd ed. (New York: Fordham University Press, 1982)
• Emile Mâle, The Gothic Image: Religious Art in France of the Thirteenth Century, trans. Dora Nussey (New York: Harper and Row, 1972)
• James Marrow, Passion Iconography in Northern European Art of the Late Middle Ages and Early Renaissance: A Study of the Transformation of Sacred Metaphor into Descriptive Narrative (Kortrijk: Van Ghemmert Publisher, 1979)
• Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art (New York: William Morrow Paperbacks, 1994)
• Bernard McGinn, The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism, 6 vols. (New York: Crossroad, 1991-2019)
• Sigmund Mowinckel, The Psalms in Israel’s Worship (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2004)
• G. Ronald Murphy, Gemstone of Paradise: The Holy Grail in Wolfram’s Parsifal (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010)
• G. Ronald Murphy, The Owl, the Raven, and the Dove: The Religious Meaning of the Grimms’ Magic Fairy Tales (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002)
• G. Ronald Murphy, Tree of Salvation: Yggdrasil and the Cross in the North (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013)
• Barbara Newman, God and the Goddesses: Vision, Poetry, and Belief in the Middle Ages (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003)
• Aidan Nichols, The Shape of Catholic Theology: An Introduction to its Sources, Principles, and History (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1991)
• Friedrich Ohly, Sensus Spiritualis: Studies in Medieval Significs and the Philology of Culture, trans. Kenneth J. Northcott (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005)
• Dorothy Sayers, The Mind of the Maker (New York: HarperCollins, 1987)
• Elaine Scarry, The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World  (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987)
• Elaine Scarry, On Beauty and Being Just (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001)
• John Senior, The Death of Christian Culture (Norfolk, VA: IHS Press, 2008)
• John Senior, The Restoration of Christian Culture (Norfolk, VA: IHS Press, 2008)
• A.P. Sertillanges, The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods, trans. Mary Ryan (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University Press, 1992)
• Charles Williams, The Descent of the Dove: A Short History of the Holy Spirit in the Church (Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 2001)
• Philip and Carol Zaleski, The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings: J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2015)
• Jan Ziolkowski, The Juggler of Notre Dame and the Medievalizing of Modernity, 6 vols. (Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, 2018)

Work in progress—pardon our dust!

Praise the Lord from the earth, ye dragons, and all ye deeps—Psalm 148:7