Persona and Paradox
This collection of essays examines the life and work of C.S. Lewis and his associates through the theme of identity. Scholars explore gender, family, and national identity in the writings of Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Dorothy L. Sayers, and others.
After Satan
In tribute to Neil Forsyth, these essays trace the lineage of the Satan figure through literary history. They chart the demonised other from biblical history and Milton to the contemporary novel, showing how evil functions as a necessary other.
Alphonse de Lamartine’s prose-poem The Stonemason of Saint Point is the story of a peasant’s life, love and faith in the hills of Burgundy. In reality, it describes Lamartine’s own search for God through threatening and godless times in his country.
Coleridge and Hinduism
The only comprehensive study of Coleridge’s profound ties to Oriental Tales, revealing how Hindu works, especially the Bhagavadgītā, shaped his poetic imagination and his quest for the “One life.”
This comprehensive study of Byron’s eclectic attitude to religion concludes he was never the atheist of cliché, but a man whose profound need for a faith always clashed with an equally profound scepticism.
A new approach to culture relates personality to the genesis of myths and religions. Cultures, like man, pass through phases from childhood to old age. From sacred tales to modern myths like Superman, these stories provide meaning and motivation for human behavior.
This is the first book of academic criticism on the connection between Christianity and the detective story. It covers Chesterton, Sayers, and contemporary TV crime dramas, making the case that mystery writing provides both entertainment and religious insight.
This study locates five contemporary British poets in a counter-cultural tradition responding to state power. From Celtic druids to Thatcherism, these shamanic poets use ‘archaic techniques of ecstasy’ to wrest spirituality from religion and politics.
Charitini Christodoulou argues that a “dialogic openness” permeates Nikos Kazantzakis’ The Last Temptation. Antithetical forces clash in unresolved tension, revealing that subjectivity and identity are always in the process of becoming.
The Unharnessed World
Though Janet Frame encountered Buddhism, her work has never been examined through its lens. This study shows how a Buddhist reading sheds new light on her mysterious texts, arguing Frame used its epistemology to approach the infinite and the Other.
Islam and the West
Challenging common depictions of hostility, this collection locates threads of connection and ‘love’ between Islam and the West. Through media, literature, and cinema, it seeks to prompt meaningful dialogue and construct a healthier relationship.
Shakespeare’s Ghosts Live
This book throws new light on many historical case reports from Shakespeare’s time onwards. It raises awareness against the emptiness of a zombie-like existence in today’s society and offers a new approach to life and death, and their deeper meaning.
Science, Fables and Chimeras
Imagination, religion, and mythology have both helped and hindered scientific progress. This interdisciplinary book weaves together visual art, literature, and science to explore our fascination with potent symbols like dinosaurs, dragons, and the chimera.
Eiss explores how Eliot and Michelangelo struggle with the highest meanings of life in their artistic work and express what Rudolph Otto designates the mysterium tremendum. He reveals how Elliott struggled with his Christianity and turned to Michelangelo’s similar endeavour.
A selection from the unpublished notebooks of Northrop Frye, Canada’s greatest literary critic. These insightful, startling, and unguarded passages reveal his fertile mind at work and showcase the seeds of the ideas he developed in his books and essays.
C. S. Lewis and the Inklings
The Inklings’ views on the negative impacts of technology and their resolution through fellowship and faith. Essays demonstrate how their literary craft can enchant readers, empowering them with a keener spiritual vision to tackle present concerns.
Lila is the play of the gods, a free spirit of creation beyond the chains of reason and the clocks of time. Come, enter a realm of divine madness, where the trickster, the artist, and the savior weave the great tapestry of life. Join the play.
Passion and Precision
These essays bring passionate and precise attention to ten major poets from the fourteenth and twentieth centuries. The collection explores English and Irish writers from Chaucer and the Pearl-poet to T. S. Eliot, Yeats, and Seamus Heaney.
This source book of comparative literature explores the impact of Aphrodite and Venus. Drawing on sources from art, prose, and verse, it traces the goddess’s allure from the distant past to the present, blending myth with the contemporary.
Jamaican Poet Laureate Lorna Goodison’s poetry uses Sufism to heal the trauma of the Middle Passage. This book examines how she applies Sufi ideals to a Caribbean context, showing how its message resonates with Jamaican-based religions and creates a new literary canon.