For the first time in almost half a century, the world of Hopkins is examined as an indivisible whole. The Split World of Gerard Manley Hopkins is a synthetic study of Hopkins's writings, written within a framework of semiotic phenomenology.
Machine generated contents note: Introduction; Part I. Forms of Devotion: 1. Bibles; 2. Prayer; Part II. Models of Faith: 3. The soldier; 4. The martyr; Part III. Last Things: 5. Death and judgement; 6. Heaven and hell
In this book, Christopher Southgate proposes a new way of understanding the glory of God in Christian theology, based on glory as sign. Working from the roots of the concept in the Hebrew Bible, Theology in a Suffering World: Glory and Longing shows that 'glory' is not necessarily about beauty or radiance, but is better understood as a sign of the unknowable depths of God. Southgate goes on to show how John and Paul transform the concept of glory in the light of the cross. He then explores where glory may be discerned in the natural world, including in situations of pain and suffering. In turn glory is explored in the poetry of R. S. Thomas and the writings of the Jewish mystic Etty Hillesum. Finally, the book considers what it might mean for Christians to be 'transformed from one degree of glory to another': that might mean becoming a sign of the great sign of God that is Christ, and conforming their longing to God's longing for the Kingdom to come.
Through the lens of Hopkins's 'masterwork', The Philosophical Mysticism of Gerard Manley Hopkins readdresses Hopkins's frequently overlooked mysticism as an interior narrative within his corpus. Drawing on a range of religious, literary and visual traditions from Augustine's Confessions to the seventeenth-century spiritual emblem, this book demonstrates the ways in which the Wreck deliberately constructs and conceals a mystical and contemplative narrative. Typology and allegory are some of the important hermeneutic tools used in this re-reading of Hopkins, relating the poet to the discursive tradition surrounding the Old Testament Song of Songs, the philosophical theology of the Greek Fathers, and, perhaps most intriguingly, the meditative and visual tradition of the baroque heart-emblem. On the centenary of the publication of Hopkins’s poems, this book places the writer firmly within a mystical tradition, necessitating a fundamental reconsideration of the legacy of this major Victorian poet.
Braiding together strands of literary, phenomenological and art historical reflection, Modernism and Phenomenology explores the ways in which modernist writers and artists return us to wonder before the world. Taking such wonder as the motive for phenomenology itself, and challenging extant views of modernism that uphold a mind-world opposition rooted in Cartesian thought, the book considers the work of modernists who, far from presenting perfect, finished models for life and the self, embrace raw and semi-chaotic experience. Close readings of works by Paul Cézanne, Gertrude Stein, Franz Kafka, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Wallace Stevens, Paul Klee, and Virginia Woolf explore how modernist texts and artworks display a deep-rooted openness to the world that turns us into "perpetual beginners." Pushing back against ideas of modernism as fragmentation or groundlessness, Mildenberg argues that this openness is less a sign of powerlessness and deferred meaning than of the very provisionality of experience.
This book analyses the themes of anxiety and transience in the poetical thought of Gerard Manley Hopkins, a prominent 19th-century poet. The book argues that, despite Hopkins’s strong religious beliefs, his artistic vision and quest for an original aesthetic were the foremost concerns in his poetry. The author examines Hopkins’s early interest in transience, which he later developed through the influence of the philosopher Duns Scotus and the aesthetic critic Walter Pater. In the second half of the book, the author employs Martin Heidegger’s philosophy to deepen our understanding of Hopkins’s poetics of anxiety and transience. He illuminates how these themes shaped Hopkins’s poetic voice, revealing his affinity with Romanticism and his belief that transience and anxiety enhance rather than hinder the creative process. The book provides a fresh perspective on Hopkins’s work, challenging the prevailing views that downplay the importance of these themes. While the book is primarily a contribution to literary scholarship, it may also appeal to readers interested in the intersection of literature, philosophy and art.
Conversion is an important characteristic of religious renewal, and of the dialogue between churches and religious believers. In the Roman Catholic Church, conversion has played a significant role in ecumenical dialogue recently. It has become a challenge for the Church as a whole, instead of a call to individual believers alone. The contributors of this volume explore the different aspects of conversion in the history of theology, in the developments during and after the Second Vatican Council, in the Ignatian tradition, and in several ecclesial groups that have explored the opportunities of the ongoing renewal of the churches. Contributors are: André Birmelé, Inigo Bocken, Erik Borgman, Catherine Clifford, Peter De Mey, Adelbert Denaux, Eugene Duffy, Stephan van Erp, Joep van Gennip, Thomas Green, Wiel Logister, Annemarie Mayer, Jos Moons, Marcel Sarot, Karim Schelkens, Nico Schreurs, Matthias Smalbrugge, and Arnold Smeets.
This volume investigates how literary texts have reflected, in ground-breaking ways, distinctive features of a Catholic philosophy of life. It demonstrates how literature, by its ability to capture the imagination, is able to evoke facets of human experience related specifically to a Catholic understanding of life.
This book considers the connection between the world of mental health in the twenty-first century and the traditional concept of desire in Christianity and the Arts. It draws parallels between the desire for rest from anxiety among mental health sufferers with the longing for peace and happiness in Religion and the Arts. The author presents Biblical, philosophical and theological insights alongside artistic ones, arguing that desire for rest remains at the heart of spiritual living as well as mental health recovery. The chapters draw from historical and contemporary voices, including Plato, Augustine of Hippo, Julian of Norwich, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Simone Weil, Samuel Beckett, Tennessee Williams, Jean-Louis Chrétien, Eric Varden and others. The study demonstrates why longing continues to fascinate and grip individuals, creative endeavour and society at large, not least in the development of the understanding of mental health. It is valuable for scholars and advanced students of Christian theology and those interested in spirituality and the arts in particular.
The nature of silence is hard to grasp. This book serves to systematize this concept and explore it in the works of three major poets of religious experience: namely, Gerard Manley Hopkins, T. S. Eliot and R. S. Thomas. Since these poets worked within a Christian framework, the “silences” they refer to are mainly those emerging in the context of the relationship between God and man in a post-Christian climate. The book’s textual analyses place special attention on the dynamics between thematic and structural manifestations of silence, and are situated at the crossroads of the poetics, philosophy and theology. In this first study bringing together the poetry of Hopkins, Eliot and Thomas, the three poets, each in his unique way, emerge as poetic ministers, practitioners, and producers of silence, who try to find a new language to talk about the Ineffable God and one’s experience of the divine.