Overview

Distinguished theologians and literary scholars explore the workings of the sacred and the sacramental in language and literature. What does a sacramental poetics offer that secular cultural theory, for all of its advances, may have missed? How does a sacred understanding of the world differ from a strictly secular one? This volume develops the theory of ""sacramental poetics"" advanced by Regina Schwartz in her 2008 book on English Reformation writers, taking the theory in new directions while demonstrating how enduring and widespread this poetics is. Toward a Sacramental Poetics addresses two urgent questions we have inherited from a half century of secular critical thought. First, how do we understand the relationship between word and thing, sign and signified, other than as some naive direct representation or as a completely arbitrary language game? And, second, how can the subject experience the world beyond instrumentalizing it? The contributors conclude that a sacramental poetics responds to both questions, offering an understanding of the sign that, by pointing beyond itself, suggests wonder. The contributors explore a variety of topics in relation to sacramental poetics, including political theology, miracles, modernity, translation and transformation, and the metaphysics of love. They draw from diverse resources, from Dante to Hopkins, from Richard Hooker to Stoker's Dracula, from the King James Bible to Wallace Stevens. Toward a Sacramental Poetics is an important contribution to studies of religion and literature, the sacred and the secular, literary theory, and theologies of aesthetics. Contributors: Regina M. Schwartz, Patrick J. McGrath, Rowan Williams, Subha Mukherji, Stephen Little, Kevin Hart, John Milbank, Hent de Vries, Jean-Luc Marion, Ingolf U. Dalferth, Lori Branch, and Paul Mariani.

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Reviews

“It is impossible to read Milton, Shakespeare, or Jonson the same way after the insightful literary analyses in Toward a Sacramental Poetics.” —Ilha do Desterro ""Toward a Sacramental Poetics offers a compelling invitation to recognize the inexhaustible depths of meaning available in a sacramental vision of reality. Such depths of meaning embrace the poetic in its broadest artistic, epistemological, and communal dimensions. The essays gathered here are a wonderful expression of the depths of communal meaning to which the volume points."" —Vittorio Montemaggi, co-editor of Dante, Mercy, and the Beauty of the Human Person “In this brilliant and wonderfully arresting set of responses to Regina Schwartz’s important work Sacramental Poetics at the Dawn of Secularism, an eminent group of contributors helps us think about the capacity of signs to point beyond themselves in our modern secular world.” —Mark Knight, editor of The Routledge Companion to Literature and Religion

In this brilliant and wonderfully arresting set of responses to Regina Schwartz's important work, Sacramental Poetics at the Dawn of Secularism, an eminent group of contributors helps us think about the capacity of signs to point beyond themselves in our modern secular world. -Mark Knight, editor of The Routledge Companion to Literature and Religion

In this brilliant and wonderfully arresting set of responses to Regina Schwartz's important work Sacramental Poetics at the Dawn of Secularism, an eminent group of contributors helps us think about the capacity of signs to point beyond themselves in our modern secular world. -Mark Knight, editor of The Routledge Companion to Literature and Religion Toward a Sacramental Poetics offers a compelling invitation to recognize the inexhaustible depths of meaning available in a sacramental vision of reality. Such depths of meaning embrace the poetic in its broadest artistic, epistemological, and communal dimensions. The essays gathered here are a wonderful expression of the depths of communal meaning to which the volume points. -Vittorio Montemaggi, co-editor of Dante, Mercy, and the Beauty of the Human Person

"“In this brilliant and wonderfully arresting set of responses to Regina Schwartz’s important work Sacramental Poetics at the Dawn of Secularism, an eminent group of contributors helps us think about the capacity of signs to point beyond themselves in our modern secular world.” —Mark Knight, editor of The Routledge Companion to Literature and Religion ""Toward a Sacramental Poetics offers a compelling invitation to recognize the inexhaustible depths of meaning available in a sacramental vision of reality. Such depths of meaning embrace the poetic in its broadest artistic, epistemological, and communal dimensions. The essays gathered here are a wonderful expression of the depths of communal meaning to which the volume points."" —Vittorio Montemaggi, co-editor of Dante, Mercy, and the Beauty of the Human Person “It is impossible to read Milton, Shakespeare, or Jonson the same way after the insightful literary analyses in Toward a Sacramental Poetics.” —Ilha do Desterro"

Author Information

Regina M. Schwartz is professor of English and law at Northwestern University. She is the author and editor of numerous books, including Sacramental Poetics at the Dawn of Secularism. Patrick J. McGrath is associate professor of English at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. He is the author of Early Modern Asceticism: Literature, Religion, and Austerity in the English Renaissance.

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