The Dream of Gerontius

This poem by Saint John Henry Newman, English theologist, Catholic priest and poet of the 19th century portrays the story of a dead man’s soul as it leaves from his deathbed into his final judgement. In it, Gerontius, literally translating to an old man in Greek, dies a faithful and pious death and then turns into “The Soul” that ends up into the Purgatory by God’s last judgement. Very thought-provoking for a Catholic text, the poem offers a philosophical scope and a skepticism in a poetic style not unlike Dante’s.