Christianity and Literature

Explorations of Tolkien's latent theology abound, but very little focused scholarship proposes to discuss how Tolkien's legendari-um portrays an understanding of the Holy Spirit, especially in light of Tolkien's Roman Catholicism. This essay explores three major features of Tolkien's work that provide insight into this ghostly person of the Trinity. The Silmarillion provides detailed insight as to the exact identity of the " Flame Imperishable, " while its characters demonstrate the indwelling of this Flame. St. Paul explains the gifts of the Holy Spirit in his first letter to the Corinthians and Tolkien seems to mimic many of these gifts in the characters of the nine members of the Fellowship. Lastly, the Great Eagles represent the workings of the Holy Spirit, both as servants of Manwë and as agents of eucatastrophe.

Relatively few works of literary criticism have been published covering Wendell Berry’s Port William fiction. Beyond the complexity of addressing a living author’s still growing fictional world, Berry’s essays and poetry lure many scholars away from exclusively examining his fiction. Some may also be reticent due to Berry’s less-than-veiled, Twain-like threat in the opening of Jayber Crow to any who would seek the literary within his work. Regardless of why many remain hesitant to engage in extensive literary criticism of Berry’s fiction, Joseph Wiebe has proven himself more than willing to do his fair share.

Lawyers love to write about To Kill a Mockingbird, which they believe to have been written by one of their own, but as the recent publication of an early draft of Harper Lee's best-selling novel reveals, there is more to her Pulitzer Prize-winning story of the American South than an exhilarating trial scene and an exemplary lawyer. This article attends to the importance of grace in the development of Lee's artistic vision through a close reading of the novel's morally compromised conclusion, where an incarnational ethic of love ultimately (though perhaps imperfectly) fulfills the purpose of the law.

Жанр романтической сказки имеет своей задачей восстановление прав и полномочий символа. Этой задаче служит обращение к мистико-герметической традиции как носительнице «силы символа». Мы рассматриваем сказку Андерсена «Снежная королева» как пример свободного использования языка мистической, и прежде всего, алхимической, традиции в
собственных целях.

"Eliot and France, France and Eliot", preface, in Jayme Stayer, ed., T. S. Eliot, France, and the Mind of Europe (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015), p. X-XIV.

T. S. Eliot and France: quel sujet! The French influence on Eliot’s poetry and thought could not be underestimated in any way; it might even be one of the most intense and long-lasting love stories an English-speaking writer ever had with Baudelaire’s country.
As far as Eliot and France go then, ça suffit. But what about France and Eliot? What I mean is: what about the way Eliot has been read in the country that influenced him so much? What level of understanding has the poet actually attained in his second literary homeland? Foreign literatures are specific systems more isolated from their neighbors than one might think, and Eliot’s case can reveal the unformulated laws that govern these systems.

Dante as Reformer
In The Divine Comedy: Tracing God's Art, Marguerite Mills rightly suggests that it is “hardly worth asking whether the Divine Comedy is important” (Chiarenza 6). The fact that Dante’s influence can be seen in the work of writers like C.S. Lewis is enough to substantiate her claim and solidify Dante’s place within the world canon (Daigle-Williamson 3). While an examination of Dante’s influence on Lewis would be a rewarding endeavor, the focal point of this essay is on the way Dante the poet transposed “Christian teaching into accessible literary forms as well as his narrative depictions of the Christian pilgrim and the Christian journey” (Daigle-Williamson 201). However, the journey Dante’s pilgrim takes is one that pushes against the traditional views and practices of the medieval church. One of the reasons that Dante was and remains important well into the twenty-first century is because of his ability to transcribe the pilgrim’s journey in such a way as to act as a reformer.
While the reformer aspect of Dante can be discovered throughout the Divine Comedy, this essay will focus on an example from each of volume. Near the conclusion of the Inferno, Dante the pilgrim encounters Satan; as readers enter Satan’s abode, however, they are met with the anticlimactic nature of the scene. This was Dante’s purpose and it is an act of reform. Secondly, the essay will look at the way Beatrice’s priestly role in Purgatorio, which was not allowed within the medieval church. Finally, Dante’s placement of pagans within Paradiso reveals a final reform: faith that is based on grace as opposed to works.

If we suppose, with Kant, that "laughter is an affection arising from a strained expectation being suddenly reduced to nothing,"  and that our expectations and what reduces them are, to some extent, culturally constructed, we must come to the conclusion that the evocation of laughter by a joke or absurdity or some other 'reduction to nothing' has a range of communities in which it will work better or worse, or may fail to work.  In Ann Petry's comic masterpiece, "The Bones of Louella Brown,"  a reader begins to hear the joyful and loving laughter of the community of saints.

Frankenstein is a speculative narrative that asks: what would happen if man created human life without the biologically and relationally necessary woman and with indifference to God? What if Adam were to reject his own Creator and create life after his own fleshly or material image? Mary Shelley's answer to these questions is not a triumphant humanist manifesto, nor is it an ironic subversion of a supposedly outmoded theistic perspective. Rather, she offers a philosophical nightmare revealing the horriflc consequences of methodological naturalism taken to its logical conclusion. Frankenstein explores the ideological vacuum engendered by scientißc materialism and examines the spiritual bankruptcy of replacing theism with secular humanism. Victor Frankenstein's transgressive autonomy, grounded in scientiflc materialism, results in a reductionism that ultimately leads to existential despair, individual crisis, and communal disintegration.

The purpose of our collection of essays is to frame Shakespeare’s representation of human moral choice within the context of intellectual history. The contributors extend the Cambridge method of moderate contextualism from its origins, the study of political philosophy, to a parallel study of Shakespeare’s thought about ethics, situating Shakespeare’s ideas within contemporary debate about rival, overlapping moral paradigms. Christianity, Skepticism, Epicureanism: these and other such schools of thought serve as examples of Pocock’s “languages,” but in the realm of moral philosophy, rather than political. The collection also places Shakespeare in dialogue with a representative Continental analogue, Montaigne. Our animating premise is that Shakespeare's ideas about ethics can be best understood within a larger historical frame: sources, paradigms, and problems already extant and even highly elaborated, well before Shakespeare himself ever set pen to page. The terminus a quo is just as important as the terminus ad quem: as Bacon writes, “Things in themselves new will yet be apprehended with reference to what is old." Shakespeare’s perspective on morality does not emerge ex nihilo, the product of an inexplicable rupture, but instead draws upon a rich variety of intellectual traditions, Christian as well as classical, even in its moments of most ardent critique. The choice of the term “Renaissance” for the title, for example, rather than “early modern,” is deliberate: our hope is to foreground the resurgence of classical paradigms in this period. Over the course of Shakespeare’s life, new moral systems such as Neo-Stoicism and Epicureanism challenged prevailing ethical assumptions, began to contest the preeminence of Christianity, and laid the groundwork for what we now call “modernity”: Charles Taylor’s “secular age.”

This essay redefines the task of the reader in light of Christian
hope, unfolding how a theology of hope might ground literary criticism.
The resulting approach to literature—hopeful reading—considers
texts in light of their future becoming in the Kingdom of God. Rather
than considering texts as purveyors of hope or possibility for a reader's
future, hopeful reading asks critics to non-instrumentally foreground
the possibilities in a text's future. The essay explains Christian hope,
shows how it might warrant and construct a literary critic's vocation,
and offers several extended examples of contemporary critics who
seem to be reading hopefully.

The dramatic confrontation which ensues on the bridge of Khazad-dûm between Gandalf and the just-awakened Balrog not only constitutes one of the turning points in the War of the Ring, but it also provides a glimpse of what Tolkien may have envisioned as a Christian reinterpretation of the traditional model of Germanic heroism. The two notions are, of course, at a clearly detectable ethical variance, the former being fundamentally defined by the self-sacrificial dedication to the cause, the latter by the self-centred pursuit of transient glory. Seen in the light of medieval literature, the bridge episode might also be read as a conceptual reimagining of the roughly analogous situation in the Old English poem The Battle of Maldon, where the far-too-confident ealdorman Byrhtnoth allows the enemy safe passage across the ford, thus placing himself and his people at a considerable strategic disadvantage. In The Lord of the Rings, the role of Byrhtnoth is obviously assigned (albeit inversely) to the character of Gandalf whose courageous efforts to protect his companions accentuate the wizard's sense of responsibility, upwards (the cause) as well as downwards (his companions).

As Prince Andrei lay dying beside Natasha and his sister, Princess Marya, he reflects inward, “Love? What is love?” Love is the theme of all great literature, from Homer and Dante to Milton, Herbert, and Tennyson. It is the theme of all great philosophy, from Plato to Augustine to Schelling. In this article, I explore the movement and development of Tolstoy's War and Peace from the journeys of Andrei, Pierre, and Natasha to arrive at the meaningful paradise which Tolstoy is advocating: forgiveness, marriage, and family.

This paper concerns Teresa of Ávila’s “aesthetic christology” as it unfolds in her "Vida" (1562, published 1588), more precisely, the autobiography’s reconciliation of transcendental spirituality and worldly sensuality through a daring yet delicate development of Christian theological aesthetics into an at once highly spiritual and deeply sensual writing. Teresa’s autobiography is based on an allegorical view of the flesh and of words —the ‘body’ of language— as mystical images of the divine and, concretely, on the mediation of the spiritual and the sensual through the development of an idiosyncratic religious-cum-aesthetic idiom that is traditional in its mysticology (stages of the mystic life) and conventional in the choice of motives (limits of language and human perception; ‘from sinner to saint’; humility), but innovative in the choice of rhetoric (extreme eroticization of religious discourse; use of cancionero metaphors) and the radicality of its christology (hyper-devotion to the ‘sacred Humanity’). To the extent that this aesthetic christology is characterized by an arguably extreme interpretation of the already quite eroticized rhetoric of the Christian mystical tradition, it is traditional in essence yet imbued with a sensibility that may be qualified as modern: even if "Vida" essentially remains within the confines of the Christian allegorical worldview that fostered it, it does take the eroticism contained in the concept of unio mystica to new and as yet unseen heights.

This extended essay for the IB program evaluates the extent in which we can perceive Lord Voldemort as the misunderstood tragic hero of the Harry Potter series, rather than as the villainous archetype he is famously portrayed to be. To accomplish this, I at first establish the cultural particularity of Western morals the book is based in through analysis of its historical and axiological origins to introduce the lack of absoluteness and complexity when depicting Lord Voldemort as ‘bad guy’, as well as to introduce the underlining presence of Ancient Greek thought in the series.
This further helps establish the second argument that presents classic Aristotelian tragedy, as seen in Greek plays, in order to demonstrate the numerous resemblances Voldemort possesses with many of these iconic fallen heroes. Such supports the justification that he is further misunderstood when the reader does not realize such. This is notably done by recurrently running parallels between him and Lucifer from Paradise Lost.
Finally, with the help of scholarly articles analyzing and criticizing stereotypes found in popular literary media, I further evaluate the dynamic between the hero, Harry Potter, and the villain, Lord Voldemort, in order to demonstrate the manner relationships such as these reinforce the reader’s perception of villainy in Voldemort, while overlooking key factors that illustrate the depth of the character and tragedy of his actions.
Through the use of these three arguments, and the wide range of different moral and cultural perspectives analyzed while investigating the subject, I am able to come to the conclusion that Lord Voldemort is undoubtedly a fallen hero who is mistaken for a villain, adding to the tragedy of his striking character.

Veprën e Dostojevskit këtij shkrimtari të madh rus autori i
këtij libri e kishte lexuar prej kohësh, por u thellua në të, kur
studionte në Universitetin Kombëtar Kapodistria të Athinës në
degën e Teologjisë Sociale. Ndiqte me interes të veçantë leksionet
fakultative në lëndën: “Analiza filozofike dhe teologjike e letërsisë”
ku trajtoheshin disa nga kryeveprat e letërsisë botërore, që kishin
karakter të krishterë. Ndër to mbresa të veçanta i la libri i profesorit
Makraqi: “Dostojevski. Pësimi dhe Liria”botuar në Athinë më 1994.
Nga ky libër ka përgatitur një përzgjedhje temash duke i
konkretizuar me pasazhet nga veprat e Dostojevskit të përkthyera
në shqip. Pra ishin ato copëza leksionesh, që i dhanë kurajo për të
vazhduar punën e për të ardhur deri në librin “Dostojevski nuk
ndihej i vetmuar”. Libri bazohet në jetën dhe veprën e Dostojevskit
si “Shkrimtari i fatkeqëve”. Pikërisht këtu qëndron edhe vlera, sepse
tema që trajton mbi dhimbjen dhe pësimin në raportet e tyre me
shpëtimin e lirinë, përbëjnë moton e kohës që po jetojmë.

My doctoral thesis. The main theme is the conflict between aesthetics and religious sense in Oscar Wilde literature.
I study fairy tales, the Picture of Dorian Gray, Salome, and comedies.
in all of there works, Wilde wrote both of aesthetics and religious sense, even though his works are very decadent.

π. Ευάγγελος Κ. Πριγκιπάκης, «Θρησκεία και Ελληνικότητα στην ποίηση του Κωστή Παλαμά», Διάλογος. Σπουδές στη Θεολογία. Ελληνικό Ανοικτό Πανεπιστήμιο. Σχολή Ανθρωπιστικών Επιστημών. Επιστημονική Επιθεώρηση του Μεταπτυχιακού Προγράμματος ‘Σπουδές στην Ορθόδοξη Θεολογία’ 10 (2019), σ. 316-365.

The religious element plays an essential role in the poetry of Kostis Palamas, since it is understood as a timeless, unifying factor of Hellenism. Consciously following a peculiarly religious syncretism with a mainly national purpose, he particularly emphasizes the fundamental influence of the Αncient Greek religious tradition on Christianity. More specifically, he views them as two successive manifestations of the religious identity of Hellenism. According to Palamas, Ancient Greek Religion was succeeded by Christianity, the later becoming Hellenized and, thus, establishing Orthodoxy as the new form and continuation of the Ancient Greek Religion, with Christ and Virgin Mary as central persons during the Late Roman Period, that is to say, Romiosyni (“Byzantium”). Therefore, he attempts to serve mainly his Greek-centered vision, with the aim of accentuating and stressing the Αncient Greek and Christian Religion as constitutive cultural elements of the Greek identity, in order to contribute to the political unity and spiritual construction of New Greece. For this reason, and in the context of the cultivation of Modern Greek Identity, he seeks to create a new Natural Religion which will have poetry as the dominant element and Nature and Human as the centre of it, according to the standards of the European Enlightenment. This novel Religion will be a creative synthesis of the elements of Ancient Greek Religion and Orthodox Christianity in order to succeed them, adapted to the conditions of the modern times.

Recent translations of Novalis’s work into English should occasion fresh endeavours in the field of Novalis studies, aimed at English readers who are without German. In this book John O’Meara presents his own understanding of what Novalis offers to these readers, who have been given firmer access to his life and to his philosophical works than ever before. O’Meara traces Novalis’s philosophical development meticulously, finishing up with an in-depth analysis of his Hymns to the Night, the Spiritual Songs, and his main and unfinished novel, Henry von Ofterdingen. Emphasis is on the process by which Novalis’s literary works manifest as direct expressions of his philosophical explorations, which bear fruit, eventually, in visions of sweeping majesty and annunciatory grandeur.
See, also, an Addendum to my remarks on Friedrich Schlegel's "Lucinde" in my 'Preface' to "The Way of Novalis" at https://issuu.com/johnomeara1797/docs/novalis_and_friedrich_schlegel_s_lucinde
In his romantic narrative, "Lucinde," Friedrich Schlegel defers to the tragic romantic life of Novalis...

“O'Meara is to be commended for his grasp of the philosophical questions that profoundly motivated Novalis and for his ability to integrate Novalis's life and thought into one narrative.”  {Bernhard Radloff, from a book review in 'Studies in Romanticism,' Vol.55, no.4, Winter 2016}

Visit the author's website at http://johnomeara.squarespace.com/

This essay presents a case for ecocriticism as a viable critical method for Christian scholars. It begins with an historical overview of the method, then examines common ground shared by ecocriticism and Christianity~ including what amounts to a kind of critical realism, and the belief in the inherent goodness of creation. Two potential obstacles are then addressed by way of Lynn White, Jr.'s famous essay, "The Historical Roots of our Ecologic Crisis." These include the relationship of the Bible and the environment, and the charge of anthropocentrism. I believe White is partly right, but contend that neither objection is fatal for Christian scholars who wish to employ ecocriticism.

Esther by Jean Racine  is the flagship of an extensive Christian litterature.  A biblical analysys. Excerpt from The book of Esther, an exegesis by pictures 
La littérature chrétienne  inspirée du Livre d'Esther est dominée par la tragédie de Jean Racine que nous étudions ici du point de vue de l'exégèse religieuse. Extrait de notre ouvrage Le Livre d'Esther, une exégèse en images
BOD 2018 - ISBN : 9782322108527

Although no longer a household name, Elizabeth Goudge (1900-1984) was once a best-selling novelist, the author of an epic historical novel that became a Hollywood blockbuster – Green Dolphin Street – based on experiences of some of her own ancestors in the Nineteenth century. She created a masterpiece of children’s literature, The Little White Horse. Her career spanned from 1934 to 1970. But now, more than fifty years later, Goudge is remembered by a small group of enthusiasts, and occasionally rediscovered by adventurous readers. This article focuses on Goudge’s war-time novel, The Castle on the Hill (1942), considering the special attributes that reveal the quality of Goudge’s writing, as well as her major achievement as a philosophical-religious author. Something of Goudge herself will also be made clear.

For a very long time, the transformations that have taken place in the history of the Mizo is mainly derived from the writings of the colonizers and the Christian missionaries. The entirediscourse which was dominated by the white male perspective was slightly altered when the
natives began to write their own history. However, women writers were still absent. It wasonly in the last decade of the twentieth century that women began documenting their history.This paper is an attempt to look at the place of the Mizo women in the narrative through a span of a little more than a century and how they have been representedin the history making process. Women have not always been absent but have always had some sort of'place' in the narratives. But even in the more modern historical writings, they have beendepicted as mere subjects of history rather than actor or maker of history.

Cette étude revoit une sélection de prose orientaliste claudélienne pour montrer le rapport entre Claudel et le Japon et suit la thèse qu'une sorte de cristallisation a eu lieu à travers cette rencontre. C'est dire que ses expériences au Japon l'ont amené à une nouvelle connaissance au double sens du term.

This project uses the "not of this world" motif to examine Christian literature as by definition a minority literature, even when Christianity is the majority religion. I look at the multicultural aspects of the biblical Book of Daniel and the Gospel of John, as well as the polycultural aspects of Christian history and missions, noting the early diversity of the church as it made quick inroads into Africa and Asia before becoming Europeanized, and noting the cultural challenges faced by the church in the modern era as it encountered the Americas and returned to Africa and Asia. I also look at three theologians who discuss the separation of the church from the political world: Augustine, Luther, and Kierkegaard. Finally, I examine six devotional authors in terms of concepts borrowed from contemporary ethnic studies: Saint Patrick and exile; Richard Rolle and minor literature; Saint Catherine and borderlands; George Fox and nationalism v. tribalism; Thomas Merton and contact zones; and Kathleen Norris and diaspora.

How does Jesus relate to the poet as well as poems? From a perspective of cultural history of Christianity in Republican China (1912-1949), on the one hand, Jesus becomes a poet (or the Poet) in the eyes of some Republican Christians; on the other hand, Chinese Christians begin to shape their images of Jesus in the form of poetry. And both aspects involve not only the interpretation and use of Gospel texts, but also the intellectual ethos, religio-cultural environments and socio-political contexts at that time. In short, “Jesus the Poet” in Republican China is just similar to the Jesus constructed by Western Romanticism from the late 18 century, while “Jesus in poems” written by Republican Christians is more indigenized and contextualized, albeit still with some characteristics from Western Christian traditions.

耶稣、诗人与诗，这三者有什么样的关系？从民国基督教文化史的角度出发，一方面，耶稣在一些民国基督徒的笔下成为一位诗人，即“诗人耶稣”；另一方面，民国基督徒也以诗歌的形式，塑造他们眼中的耶稣形象，即“诗中耶稣”。而无论是“诗人耶稣”，还是“诗中耶稣”，都既涉及民国基督徒对福音书文本的诠释和使用，又与他们所身处的思想氛围、宗教-文化处境以及社会-政治处境紧密相关。民国基督徒笔下的“诗人耶稣”，主要延续了18世纪末以降西方的浪漫主义思想氛围，而民国基督徒笔下的“诗中耶稣”，则在延续西方传统的同时，拥有更多本色化或处境化的特质。

Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900), as the Irish aesthetic writer in the Victorian era, wrote religious fairy tales (The  Happy  Prince  and  Other  Tales ,  1888)  and  (The  House  of Pomegranates,  1891).  It  was  the beginning of his writer's career.
The aim of this paper is to investigate the universal characteristic of Wilde's fairy tales. The way of my research is to compare Wilde's fairy tales with the works of Lewis Carroll (1832 - 1898) and those of James Barrie (1860 - 1937), because the latter two writers are still popular as well as Wilde's short fictions.

This study analyses the interpretive interplay between irony and reader in satirical fiction The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis. It parts from senior devil Screwtape’s affective level of irony and uses Umberto Eco’s and Linda Hutcheon’s notions of, respectively, interpretive cooperation and functions of irony to discuss the hypothesis that ironic inversion functions as a structured whole in Lewis’s work, in the sense that it not only conveys religious ideas regarded as important in wartime by the author, but also raises its comic effects. Thus, the analysis of textual and contextual elements which constitute it and reflect C. S. Lewis’s Christian faith and fictional creativity will reveal that, once ironic inversion is inferred and evaluated by the reader from his/her cognitive movements and degree of affectivity in relation to its ironical functions, The Screwtape Letters has provided a Christian perspective in reverse as well as literary enjoyability to C. S. Lewis’s community of readers since its weekly publication.

At first glance, the worlds (sub)created by Tolkien and Martin may seem to have a number of crucial features in common. Both are meticulously crafted, with various, often deeply incompatible, layers of cultural identity and ethics (Gondor vs Mordor, Starks vs Lannisters etc.). Likewise, despite sometimes markedly different approaches in their worldbuilding strategies, the writers' indebtedness to medieval literature, history and values has been repeatedly examined by many a scholar, providing fertile grounds for cross-cultural explorations and evaluations. There are, however, certain vital, perhaps even fundamental, issues where the worlds of The Lord of the Rings and A Song of Ice and Fire are as distinct from one another as the proverbial chalk and cheese. One such issue clearly discernible to every Christian (or, at least, Christian-raised) reader of Tolkien-is the intriguing spiritual disparity between the characters living in Middle-earth and those that inhabit Martin's Westeros. The world of the former is almost practically devoid of any explicit manifestations of the divine (at the time of its first publication the readers were not yet aware of the (pre) existence of Eru Illúvatar), yet, at the same time, it is suffused with numerous Christian values and underpinnings which cannot be ignored if one seeks to get a fuller (and thus more meaningful) picture of Tolkien's fiction. The latter, on the other hand, appears to be resplendent with all sorts of gods-greater and lesser, "real" and imaginary, more or less merciful and forgiving-yet in the long run it fails (in most cases it seems to fail all along the line) to even partly comply with the Christian (or, as for that matter, any religion-based) ethics, perhaps in some ways implying that all religions (or theologically-based systems of beliefs) are equal, and therefore equally false (or, at least, uncertain) in their nature and moral direction. The following paper seeks to examine some of these differences, juxtaposing Tolkien's Catholic worldview with that of evidently agnostic (or even atheist) Martin. D espite the fact that, over the past two decades or so, the genre of fantasy has enjoyed a substantial resurgence of interest amongst the readers, 1 and, consequently, captured the critical attention of literary scholars, thus leading 1 Here, the word 'readers' encompasses, by extension, both the people who read fantasy novels and short stories and those who come into contact with the genre by means their various cinematic and televisual adaptations (as well as, less frequently, the original productions in the fantasy field).

In the ruined landscape of twenty-first-century California, Lauren Olamina, the main character of Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents, founds a new religion, Earthseed. Earthseed deifies the cosmic pervasiveness of change with a simple statement: "God is Change." While several scholars have usefully explicated the religious origins and affective qualities of the Earthseed community, I argue that Earthseed goes further, challenging the 1990s utopian imagination to invent new modes of organization that can work within new social and material realities. As a religion, Earthseed aims at changing humanity as a whole species, a goal so large that it requires radically new models of social and political organizing. In the second novel, Olamina changes Earthseed from a local, sustainable community to a decentralized movement that parasitically draws energy from social ruin. In doing so, Earthseed offers a challenge to the utopian thinking of the 1990s: fidelity to utopian goals requires new methods that can allow a utopian movement to thrive even in the absence of the robust public sphere that supported revolutionary social movements of the 1960s.

A literary criticism of novelist William Faulkner's works is presented. The article explores subtle references to Jesus Christ and biblical narratives in Faulkner's works, including "The Sound and the Fury", "Light in August", and "Go Down, Moses". The article also mentions commentators including Donald Kartiganer, who analyze what they believe is a connection between Faulkner's works and Christ-like figures.

"The Russian Grail": Aleksander Veselovsky's Philology of Symbolic Forms. The ever first reconstruction of Veselovsky's analitic methodology, and basic categories of his Historical Poetics II - that is, of the main corpus of his legacy dedicated to early Christian legend and folklore. To be distinguished from Historical Poetics I, a single volume of collected articles from his late period on the origins of poetry, which is mainly meant and is dealt with by scholars.

By surviving the tossing-high-billows of the stormy sea, Apollonius of Tyre not only spares his life, but he also learns how to triumph over the mare mundi. Despite manifold misfortunes and trials, the character’s steadfastness and good works allow him eventually to attain utmost prosperity and regain what he had lost. Though allegedly heathen, Apollonius was a vivid exemplum of perseverance and virtue. The episode of his shipwreck is endowed with rich eschatological symbolism and it was certainly an issue of great inspiration to any monk striving for righteous Christian living. Thus it is not surprising to find a romance with such a pagan background within a codex containing homilies and other religious material.

Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672) and Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964) were both Christian women writers of American literature. Both Bradstreet’s and O’Connor’s writings contain Christian references and themes. This essay explores the importance of religious expression to many Americans, and how readers cannot fully understand some literature without focusing on the religious elements expressed within it. Since O’Connor’s short stories include many references to sin and Jesus, and the bulk of Bradstreet’s poems are religious in nature, their works show that religious liberty and expression were just as important to Americans during the twentieth century as they were in the seventeenth century, and that they are likely just as important today.

On the afternoon of Wednesday, July 8, 1741, the Northampton pastor Jonathan Edwards began to preach a sermon at the second meetinghouse in the town of Enfield entitled “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” Following George Whitefield’s visit earlier that year, the neighboring town of Suffield was experiencing a significant revival, with ninety-five communicants added the previous Sunday (Medlicott 218). Such enthusiasm, however, had not reached Enfield. In response to this spiritual lethargy, a number of clergy had banded together to stoke the fires of revival by instituting a series of weekday services, traveling back and forth between pious Suffield and impious Enfield (Marsden 219-20). Those weekday services included a visit from Northampton’s pastor. What greeted the Enfield congregation was a sermon of unparalleled logic and vivacious imagery delivered by an orator known not for theatrics, but for a pulpit voice characterized by “a powerful sense of restraint, authority, and discipline” (Buckingham 139)....

Studies in Medievalism provides an interdisciplinary medium of exchange for scholars in all fields, including the visual and other arts, concerned with any aspect of the postmedieval idea and study of the Middle Ages and the influence, both scholarly and popular, of this study on Western society after 1500.

This article examines the treatment of prayer in the writing of two prominent religious writers of the seventeenth century, the Anglican priest-poet George Herbert and the Dissenting tinker-preacher John Bunyan, best known for his authorship of The Pilgrim’s Progress. The spiritual and literary sensibilities of Bunyan and Herbert overlap in substantial ways despite their differing positions in the religious politics of the period, positions that inform different and sometimes conflicting approaches to prayer. I argue that although Herbert and Bunyan have disagreements on the form of prayer, especially on the use of written liturgical prayers, they largely agree on the spirit of prayer.

Oxford and Cambridge lecturer and author Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963) is widely regarded as one of the 20th century's most popular authors of Christian apologetics. A frequently cited aspect of C. S. Lewis’s reputation is his personal journey from atheism to Christianity. However, certain aspects of Lewis’s writings on the topic of atheism and his former beliefs raise questions regarding his claims about his past. The author examines Lewis's writings on the subjects of Christianity and atheism to question whether Lewis's account of his conversion from atheism can be taken at face value.