Aaron Rench: "In the chapter on poetry and religion you start off by saying, 'Art is like Christianity in this way; at its greatest, it can give you access to the deepest suffering you imagine.' Would you say this is why art resists sentimentalism?"

Christian Wiman: "Well, the adjective is important there: greatest. I was trying to point out how the highest moments of art can at once enact our deepest sufferings and provide a peace that is equal to them, and how this is similar to (though lesser than) what I understand to be the deepest truth of Christianity. The peace does not eliminate the sorrow or the tragedy: great art acknowledges intractable human suffering, and Christianity's promise of resurrection is empty without a clear, cold sense of the cross. So yes, art does resist sentimentality, as does, at its best, Christianity. That said, there are all kinds of art, and all kinds of Christianity, that include sentimentality---and are not necessarily vitiated because of that. I love many novels, poems, and pieces of music that have obvious sentimental moments or characters in them, and it seems to me that the daily life of a Christian can't be lived with the kind of austerity I'm describing above. Some people, those inclined to severity and sternness, actually need more sentimentality in their lives, and others who are over-inclined to frivolity and vapid cheerfulness need to be dropped more often into the depths of their beliefs. Art is a good means for achieving both of these."

-----from an interview with the editor of Poetry, Christian Wiman, in this month's Books and Culture