Through a Glass Darkly

Description

Suffering, the sacred, and the sublime are concepts that often surface in humanities research in an attempt to come to terms with what is challenging, troubling or impossible to represent. These intersecting concepts are used to mediate the gap between the spoken and the unspeakable, between experience and language, between body and spirit, between the immanent and the transcendent, and between the human and the divine. The twenty-five essays in Through a Glass Darkly: Suffering, the Sacred, and the Sublime in Literature and Theory, written by international scholars working in the fields of literary criticism, philosophy, and history, address the ways in which literature and theory have engaged with these three concepts and related concerns. The contributors analyze literary and theoretical texts from the medieval period to the postmodern age, from the works of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Donne, and Herbert to those of Endô Shûsaku, Alice Munro, Annie Dillard, Emmanuel Levinas, and Slavoj Žižek. This book will be of particular interest to scholars of religion and literature, philosophy and literature, aesthetic theory, and trauma studies.

Sujets

• Religión
• Religion

Informations

• Publié par: Wilfrid Laurier University Press
• Date de parution: 09 juin 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781554582914
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 4 Mo

Extrait

THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY
THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY
Suffering, the Sacred, and the Sublime in Literature and Theory
Edited by Holly Faith Nelson Lynn R. Szabo Jens Zimmermann
Wilfrid Laurier University Press acknowledges the financial support of the Government of Canada through its Canada Book Fund for its publishing activities.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Through a glass darkly : suffering, the sacred, and the sublime in literature and theory / edited by Holly Faith Nelson, Lynn R. Szabo, Jens Zimmermann.
Includes bibliographical references and index. Also available in electronic format. ISBN 978-1-55458-184-9 (cloth) ISBN 978-1-55458-305-8 (pbk.)
1. Suffering in literature. 2. Holy, The, in literature. 3. Sublime, The, in literature. 4. Literature - Philosophy. 5. Literature, Medieval - History and criticism. 6. Literature, Modern - History and criticism. 7. English literature - History and criticism. I. Nelson, Holly Faith, 1966- II. Szabo, Lynn II. Zimmermann, Jens, 1965-
PN45.T57 2010 809 .93353 C2009-906523-1
ISBN 978-1-55458-206-8 Electronic format.
1. Suffering in literature. 2. Holy, The, in literature. 3. Sublime, The, in literature. 4. Literature - Philosophy. 5. Literature, Medieval - History and criticism. 6. Literature, Modern - History and criticism. 7. English literature - History and criticism. I. Nelson, Holly Faith, 1966- II. Szabo, Lynn II. Zimmermann, Jens, 1965-
PN45.T57 2010a 809 .93353 C2009-906524-X
2010 Wilfrid Laurier University Press
Cover design by David Drummond. Cover art: In Your Own Time , by Alan W. Alker (2008, Digital Art). Reproduced with the permission of the artist. Text design by Daiva Villa, Chris Rowat Design.
This book is printed on FSC recycled paper and is certified Ecologo. It is made from 100% post-consumer fibre, processed chlorine free, and manufactured using biogas energy.
Printed in Canada
Every reasonable effort has been made to acquire permission for copyright material used in this publication and to acknowledge all such indebtedness accurately. Any errors and omissions called to the publisher s attention will be corrected in future printings.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.
To the memory of
Dr. W. Stanford Reid (1913-96) and Priscilla Reid (1908-97)
Dr. Barbara Helen Pell (1945-2009), Professor of Canadian Literature
and
Simon Mortimer Poultney (1983-2004)
In my end is my beginning. - Mary, Queen of Scots
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
List of Illustrations
Trauma and Transcendence: An Introduction
Holly Faith Nelson
THE CLASSICAL AND BIBLICAL INHERITANCE
Sacred Proposals and the Spiritual Sublime
David Lyle Jeffrey
MEDIEVAL VISIONS AND DREAMS
Loke in: How weet a wounde is heere! : The Wounds of Christ as a Sacred Space in English Devotional Literature
Eleanor McCullough
Suffering in the Service of Venus: The Sacred, the Sublime, and Chaucerian Joy in the Middle Part of the Parliament of Fowls
Norm Klassen
SHAKESPEAREAN HORROR
Listening to Lavinia: Emmanuel Levinas s Saying and Said in Titus Andronicus
Sean Lawrence
Precious Stories: The Discursive Economy in Shakespeare s Rape of Lucrece
Heather G.S. Johnson
METAPHYSICAL AFFLICTIONS
The Sacred Pain of Penitence: The Theology of John Donne s Holy Sonnets
David Anonby
Bearing the Cross: The Christian s Response to Suffering in Herbert s The Temple
Daniel W. Doerksen
THE ETHICAL ROMANTIC SUBLIME
Horrific Suffering, Sacred Terror, and Sublime Freedom in Helen Maria Williams s Peru
Natasha Duquette
Joanna Baillie and the Christian Gothic: Reforming Society through the Sublime
Christine A. Col n
SUFFERING AND SACRAMENT IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
Sacramental Suffering and the Waters of Redemption and Transformation in George Eliot s Fiction
Constance M. Fulmer
Christina Rossetti and the Poetics of Tractarian Suffering
Esther T. Hu
Suffering in Word and in Truth: Seventeenth- and Nineteenth-Century Quaker Women s Autobiography
Robynne Rogers Healey
SACRED MODERNISM(S)
Sacramental Imagination: Eucharists of the Ordinary Universe in the Works of Joyce, Proust, and Woolf
Richard Kearney
The Via Negativa in Forster s A Passage to India
George Piggford
THE FELLOWSHIP OF SUFFERING AND HOPE IN FANTASY LITERATURE
Consolation in Un/certainty: The Sacred Spaces of Suffering in the Children s Fantasy Literature of George MacDonald, C.S. Lewis, and Madeleine L Engle
Monika B. Hilder
The Messiah of History: The Search for Synchronicity in Miller s A Canticle for Leibowitz
Deanna T. Smid
VIOLATION AND REDEMPTION IN CANADIAN FICTION
Suffering and the Sacred: Hugh Hood s The New Age / Le nouveau si cle
Barbara Pell
Fictional Violations in Alice Munro s Narratives
John C. Van Rys
THE AMERICAN SUBLIME
Thomas Merton and the Aesthetics of the Sublime: A Beautiful Terror
Lynn R. Szabo
Belated Beloved: Time, Trauma, and the Sublime in Toni Morrison s Beloved
Steve Vine
Annie Dillard on Holy Ground: The Artist as Nun in the Postmodern Sublime
Deborah C. Bowen
JAPANESE (RE)VISIONING OF THE SUFFERING CHRIST
Passion Plays by Proxy: The Paschal Face as Interculturality in the Works of End Sh saku and Mishima Yukio
Sean Somers
POSTMODERN AESTHETICS AND BEYOND
Testifying to the Infinity of the Other: The Sacred and Ethical Dimensions of Secondary Witnessing in Anne Karpf s The War After
Bettina Stumm
Sacred Space and the Fellowship of Suffering in the Postmodern Sublime
Richard J. Lane
Suffering Divine Things: Cruciform Reasoning or Incarnational Hermeneutics
Jens Zimmermann
Bibliography
Notes on Contributors
Index
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A great many supporters have assisted us with this essay collection. Our greatest debt of gratitude is owed to The Priscilla and Stanford Reid Trust ( http://www.reidtrust.com ), which provided the funding for this project. Priscilla and Dr. W. Stanford Reid were dedicated to the pursuit of integrating faith and learning such as this volume represents. We are especially grateful to the Rev. Dr. R.J. Bernhardt, a trustee of the Reid Trust, for his thoughtful guidance and encouragement over the past two years. To them, we add the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC); Jens Zimmermann, the Canada Research Chair in Interpretation, Religion, and Culture at Trinity Western University; and the Western Regional Conference on Christianity and Literature, since it was at one of its annual conferences, also sponsored by the Reid Trust, that the seeds of many of the ideas presented in this collection first took root. Alan W. Alker, artist and designer, kindly permitted us to display his striking and poignant artwork on the book s cover, for which we are most grateful. Jennifer Doede, assistant professor of English at Trinity Western University, is offered generous thanks for her insightful and creative development of the thematic focus of the collection. We are also enormously grateful to the research assistants who worked alongside us in the preparation of this volume, most notably Lise van der Eyk and Priscilla E. Tang, as well as Nicole Brandsma, Stephen Anderson, Matthew Gaster, and Paula Flink.
We would also like to acknowledge the ways in which this work has been shaped by encounters with students and colleagues, in particular Simon Poultney (1983-2004), a Trinity Western University student who was extraordinarily insightful and creative, deeply sensitive to human suffering, and highly capable of engaging the power and grandeur of the sacred and the sublime. Dr. Barbara Pell, a beloved colleague and contributor to the volume, succumbed to cancer in March 2009. Dr. Pell was an esteemed scholar of Canadian literature and a co-founder of the Christianity and Literature Study Group (CLSG). Dr. Pell s research interests regularly drew her to the subject of the sacred and the sublime, and students will fondly remember that any suffering experienced in her classes led to a remarkable improvement in both mind and spirit. We celebrate her contributions to our department and the academy by this volume.
Holly Faith Nelson would like to recognize the ongoing support of Russell, Caleb, and Faith Nelson, as well as Marion Henderson, sources of inspiration and delight during the editing of this book. She would also like to thank Barbara E. Smith, author of Women, Saints, and Servants , whose lifelong guidance, encouragement, and spiritual generosity have fostered in her a deeper understanding of the themes of this volume. Lynn R. Szabo thanks her parents and children for their love and devoted support of her scholarly pursuits.
Finally, we are grateful to the authors, editors, and publishers that granted us permission to publish previously issued material. A version of Norm Klassen s Suffering in the Service of Venus: The Sacred, the Sublime, and Chaucerian Joy in the Middle Part of the Parliament of Fowls , was published in Tradition and Formation: Claiming an Inheritance: Essays in Honour of Peter C. Erb , ed. Michel Desjardins and Harold Remus (Kitchener, ON: Pandora Press, 2009) 213-28, and a small portion of it appeared in N