As a child Elizabeth Jennings hated Catholic school and had all the characteristics of a juvenile delinquent; thieving, lying, and stealing little bits of Hornsby trains. She recalled: “My mother said I’d end up a murderer” (Hays). Jennings works were influenced by her religious views, her childhood, and her friendship with family members and other writers.
Elizabeth Jennings was born on July 18, 1926, in Lincolnshire, England. Both Elizabeth and her older sister attended a Catholic school. After roughly four years of attending the Catholic school Jennings’ father withdrew her and enrolled her in to the Anglican Hyde School. It was there that, at the age of thirteen, Jennings discovered G. K. Chesterton's "Battle of Lepanto" in an English …show more content…
Religion is one of Elizabeth Jennings most primarily used subjects in her poems. Jennings said that her Roman Catholic religion and her poems are the most important things in her life. Her poems about religion record her effort of meditating and working out her salvation in fear (“Elizabeth (Joan) Jennings.”). Elizabeth Jennings's faith sometimes did not always lead to a very successful verse - her religious poetry sometimes found it hard to create its own atmosphere - but did contribute to some other significant prose works (The Collected Poems). “Every Changing Shape” (1961) is a poem that greatly observed the revelation of the interrelationship between mysticism and poetry. Secondly, the poem also takes account of how a religious or mystical experience informs the imagination, from her Catholic perspective. While, however, “Christianity and Poetry” (1965) observes the influences of religion on literature (Hays). Jennings also often compares writing poems to the practice of prayer, and her writing strives for a spiritual stability, but prayer, confession, and poetry also risk shadows, risk naming desires. “A World of Light” (1961) highlights the tension between Jennings’ creative life and her religious duties