Back to the Future
This study opens a fascinating window into Israeli writing of the 1980s and 90s. It links the era’s dramatic social and political transformations to the evolution of key literary genres like Holocaust literature, the Mizrachi novel, and detective fiction.
Reading the novels of George Eliot, Arthur Quiller-Couch, Barry Unsworth, and others, as a Methodist, David Dickinson offers a colourful picture of Methodists in British fiction since the close of the nineteenth century.
This is the first in-depth English analysis of the nine short poems, or romances, by Spanish mystic Saint John of the Cross. Focusing on the Trinity, it explores their literary, theological, and mystical elements, tying them to San Juan’s better-known works.
Vanishing Voices
This first study bringing together Hopkins, Eliot, and Thomas explores silence in their poetry. Situated at the crossroads of poetics, philosophy, and theology, it shows how the poets sought a new language to talk about the Ineffable God and one’s experience of the divine.
As our culture increasingly communicates through images, public theology must engage with this field. The potency of images is an uncharted force compelling us to reassess our interpretation of religion and propelling theology towards a future yet to be discovered.
The Poetry of Gregory of Nazianzus
Gregory of Nazianzus was a famous 4th-century theologian, but he was also a celebrated poet. This book discovers the poet, not the theologian, revealing the all-too-human aspects of his personality and bringing to light new characteristics of his life and thought.
A global exploration of religion’s role in shaping inclusion and exclusion in utopian and dystopian literature. This collection offers critical insights for scholars and students of literature, religion, and interdisciplinary studies.
This book explores W. B. Yeats’s mystical experience and how it is exemplified in his poetry. It covers his engagement with the occult, Celtic mysticism, and Rosicrucianism, and discusses his automatic writing experience with his wife and his apocalyptic vision.
Shakespeare on Love
Plato’s vision of universal love, alchemy, and Christian ideas strongly influenced Shakespeare’s Sonnets. He inserted these themes into his plays, creating a paradoxical combination of erotic mysticism with real lovers. The Dark Lady finds her supreme realisation in Cleopatra.
Craven uncovers Apostle Paul’s ethics hidden in Hamlet, a discovery that unlocks seismic shifts in American culture and illuminates his own quest for power.
Re-Embroidering the Robe
Since the mid-nineteenth century, writers have retold old myths with fresh messages or created new ones for traditional truths. The eighteen essays in this book examine this transforming artistry in literature from 1850 to the present day.
After a period of neglect, interest in Charles Williams—Inkling, novelist, and theologian—is growing once more. This symposium contributes to the serious study of his work, exploring his novels, theology, and influence, which is being recognized more and more.
This book presents 13 biographies of women in the Transcendentalist movement. While names like Emerson and Thoreau are familiar, figures like Elizabeth Peabody, Sarah Freeman Clark, and others in this volume deserve to be known for their vital contributions to the movement.
A refreshing new look at the Book of Psalms, this analysis of its postmodern poetry reveals its enduring relevance as a source of sustenance, comfort, and a practical handbook for life.
Selected Studies on Genre in Middle Eastern Literatures
These 12 case studies by experts in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish literature offer new insights into the intellectual universe of the Middle East. Spanning genres from classical poetry and epics to travelogues and novels, this book creates a new comparative framework.
Fundamentalism is text-centred, but its complex and paradoxical relationship with literature remains largely unexplored. These essays explore this relationship, analysing literary representations of fundamentalism and revealing unexpected affinities between the two.
The first study of Osbern Bokenham since the discovery of his lost magnum opus. It reveals how Bokenham negotiates his marginality to claim poetic authority, countering patriarchal history by asserting an alternative, spiritual matrilineage.
Visions and Revisions
Literary texts draw on other texts and ideas to communicate. This book offers new ways to understand the creations of writers like William Blake, Salman Rushdie, and Hilary Mantel, exploring their labours with form and affinities to the Western spiritual tradition.
European identity is both a problem and an opportunity. This interdisciplinary volume examines its complex facets—from cultural politics to digital media—to clarify and even create a new sense of what it means to be European.
On Wolves and Sheep
On Wolves and Sheep explores the methods used in the Spanish Golden Age to voice political opinions. Studying works by Cervantes, Lope de Vega, and others, these original essays reveal critical thoughts concerning Spain’s monarchs and imperial policies.