Theological and Philosophical Explorations of the Call of Literature: Power of the Word VI

by David Lonsdale (Editor), Emilia Di Rocco (Editor), Brett H. Speakman (Editor)

Overview

This book explores the ‘call’ of literature, for both writers and their audiences, and reflects on how literary works have informed and drawn from – and continue to inform and draw from – theology, philosophy and sacred scripture. Key questions addressed include the following: How do creative writers and critics conceive this call? What does it mean to speak of a ‘vocation’ to write and what have theologians and philosophers got to say on the matter? Is the spirit of literature always or necessarily an ‘angel of light’? Or is the call of literature a siren song? The essays by an international and interdisciplinary range of contributors discuss the work and testimony of writers from William Blake, Gerard Manley Hopkins and R.S. Thomas to James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and Michel Houellebecq. Also examined are the ideas and influence of figures such as John Henry Newman, who wrote that the importance of literature stems from our very nature and God-given powers as human beings, especially language. This latest volume from The Power of the Word Project will be of interest to scholars from theology, philosophy and literature.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781032387161
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	05/23/2025
Series:	The Power of the Word
Pages:	284
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

David Lonsdale is a retired senior lecturer at Heythrop College, University of London, and a research associate at Margaret Beaufort Institute of Theology, Cambridge, UK.

Emilia Di Rocco is a professor of Comparative Literature at Sapienza Università di Roma, Italy.

Brett H. Speakman completed his PhD at the Institute for Theology, Imagination and the Arts at the University of St Andrews, UK. He teaches literature and theology at The McCallie School in Chattanooga, TN, USA.

Table of Contents

Introduction  PART I: The Prophetic and the Religious Calling  1. John Henry Newman, Poetry and the Grammar of Assent  2. The Call of Poetry  3. Calling, Kairos, Kerygma: The Example of William Blake  4. 'It calls the calling ‘manly’: Some Thoughts on Gerard Manley Hopkins and Vocation  5. R. S. Thomas - Priest and/or Poet  PART II: Literary and Spiritual Journeys  6. Flannery O’ Connor: The Road to the Province of Joy  7. Goethe’s Roman Holiday: A Meeting and Mingling of Self and World  8. Detective Fiction and the Human Search for Meaning  9. Le compte à rebours: Michel Houellebecq, Soumission, and the Literature of Spiritual Exhaustion  PART III: Deepening the Call: Encounters Between Literature, Philosophy and Theology  10. Why Not Flowers? A Writer in the Garden and a Call of Literature: Some Thoughts Dedicated to Sandor Márai  11. The Unvoiced Fundamental Note: Atheistic Literature and Divine Resonances  12. 'Not with clever speech': Tesich's Karoo: Literary Insights on Postmodernity  13. Gerard Manley Hopkins’s Poetic Calls: The Performance of the Word  14. Hermeneutics and Resurrection: Re-reading Virgil in Dante’s Purgatorio 21-22  PART IV: Responding to the Call  15. ‘Write what it is to be man’: What Literature is Called to Do  16. The Call of the Muses and The Lure of the Sirens: Ezra Pound’s and T.S. Eliot’s literary vocation  17. Poetry as a Call to Dance: George Mackay Brown and the Healing Power of Literature  18. Poetry and Silence: The Dilemma for the Spiritual Poet