Christianity and Literature articles from June 2006

Christianity and Literature archives from June 2006

Contemplation and action in Thomas Merton.(Critical essay)
June 22, 2006... Part of Thomas Merton's influence as a spiritual writer--and he is considered be many to have been the most important spiritual writer in America in the past hundred years--stems from his recommendation of contemplation for all human beings...

Poem Ending With a Line by Rumi.(Poem)
June 22, 2006... Poem Ending With a Line by Rumi White-throated sparrows dart in and out of the hedgerow, their sweet long notes rising above the thicket, the tangle of rosa multiflora, honeysuckle, and catbriar. It's late autumn,...

Lemon.(Poem)
June 22, 2006... Lemon The pebbly map of its thin skin, the pith, the thick walls, the tough little seeds. It needs to be married to sugar, white beach sands. My mother and I are pretending we're at the shore, sitting ...

Inexpressible sadness: Sterne's Sermons and the moral inadequacies of politeness in Tristram Shandy.(Laurence Sterne's The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman)(Critical essay)
June 22, 2006... The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, has long been established as a work of both refined sensibility and exceptional vulgarity. Since its publication, critics have remarked upon the apparent contradiction between "the...

The VCCA Fellows Visit the Holiness Baptist Church, Amherst, Virginia.(Poem)
June 22, 2006... The VCCA Fellows Visit the Holiness Baptist Church, Amherst, Virginia We are the only light faces in a sea of mahogany, tobacco, almond, and this is not the only way we are different. We've come in late, the choir already...

Voices' End.(Poem)
June 22, 2006... Voices' End They must go through the Valley of Thorns, But they find it a place of springs. --Psalm 84 There are notes on the page for which we cannot account, the rise and fall of dactyls like the rise and fall of...

"Dauntless faith": contemplative sublimity and social action in Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck's aesthetics.(Critical essay)
June 22, 2006... For though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me. --Psalm 23:4 (KJV) Valour in women is so sublime. --Joanna Baillie, Preface to Metrical Legends (xxix) In her Theory on...

Was Shakespeare a Christian, and if so, what kind of Christian was he?(Shakespeare the Biography)(Shadowplay: The Hidden Beliefs and Coded Politics of William Shakespeare)(Shakespeare's Second Historical Tetralogy: Some Christian Features)(Spiritual Shakespeares)(Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare)(Shakespeare's Religious Language: A Dictionary)(Shakespeare's Religious Allusiveness: Its Play and Tolerance)(Shakespeare the Papist)(A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare 1599)(Secret Shakespeare: Studies in Theatre, Religion and Resistance)(Book review)
June 22, 2006... Shakespeare The Biography. By Peter Ackroyd. New York: Nan A. Talese/ Doubleday, 2005. ISBN: 1-8561-9726-3. Pp. xvi + 572. $32.50. Shadowplay: The Hidden Beliefs and Coded Politics of William Shakespeare. By Clare Asquith. New York: Public...

Gold mining or gold digging? The selling of Narnia.(Walking Through the Wardrobe: A Devotional Quest Into the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe)(Aslan's Call: Finding Our Way Into Narnia)(A Family Guide to Narnia: Biblical Truths in C. S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia)(The Way Into Narnia: A Reader's Guide)(Into the Wardrobe: C. S. Lewis and the Narnia Chronicles)(Inside Narnia: A Guide to Exploring the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe)(Book review)
June 22, 2006... Walking through the Wardrobe: A Devotional Quest into "[he Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. By Sarah Arthur. Wheaton: Tyndale House, 2005. ISBN 1-4143-0766-7. Pp. xxviii + 189. $9.99. Aslan's Call: Finding Our Way into Narnia. By Mark E....

The Heart Set Free: Sin and Redemption in the Gospels, Augustine, Dante, and Flannery O'Connor.(In Praise of Wisdom: Literary and Theological Reflections on Faith and Reason)(Book review)
June 22, 2006... The Heart Set Free: Sin and Redemption in the Gospels, Augustine, Dante, and Flannery O'Connor. By Kim Paffenroth. New York: Continuum, 2005. ISBN 0-8264-1613-6. Pp. xv + 176. $22.95. In Praise of Wisdom: Literary and Theological...

Chaucer as Children's Literature: Retellings from the Victorian and Edwardian Eras.(Book review)
June 22, 2006... Chaucer as Children's Literature: Retellings from the Victorian and Edwardian Eras. By Velma Bourgeois Richmond. Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company Publishers, 2004. ISBN 0-7864-1740-4. Pp. vii + 255. $32.00. Velma Bourgeois Richmond's...

Jonathan Edwards: America's Evangelical.(Book review)
June 22, 2006... Jonathan Edwards: America's Evangelical. By Philip F. Gura. New York: Hill and Wang, 2005. ISBN 0-8090-3031-4. Pp. xvi + 284. $24.00. Somewhat fast on the heels of George M. Marsden's definitive biography of Jonathan Edwards (Oxford...

Coleridge's Writings: Volume 5: On the Sublime.(Book review)
June 22, 2006... Coleridge's Writings: Volume 5: On the Sublime. Edited by David Vallins. Hampshire and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. ISBN 0-333-97250-3. Pp. xvi + 197. $89.95. The fifth volume in the Coleridge's Writings series, On the Sublime,...

Wisdom in Love, Kierkegaard and the Ancient Quest for Emotional Integrity.(Soren Kierkegaard: A Biography)(Book review)
June 22, 2006... Wisdom in Love, Kierkegaard and the Ancient Quest for Emotional Integrity. By Rick Anthony Furtak. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005. ISBN 0-268-02874-5. Pp. xii +236. Soren Kierkegaard, A Biography. By Joakim Garff....

Imperial Bibles, Domestic Bodies: Women, Sexuality, and Religion in the Victorian Market.(Book review)
June 22, 2006... Imperial Bibles, Domestic Bodies: Women, Sexuality, and Religion in the Victorian Market. By Mary Wilson Carpenter. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-8214-1515-8. Pp. xxii +206. Illus. $39.95. In the final section of her...

Chesterton and Evil.(Book review)
June 22, 2006... Chesterton and Evil. By Mark Knight. New York: Fordham University Press, 2004. ISBN: 0-8232-2310-8. Pp. 151 + References and Index. $55. At first the idea of a book devoted to the subject of Chesterton and evil might seem strange. Those who...

Spring: A Spiritual Biography of the Season.(Book review)
June 22, 2006... Spring: A Spiritual Biography of the Season. Edited by Gary Schmidt and Susan M. Felch. Vermont: Skylight Paths, 2006. ISBN 1-59473-114-4. Pp. vi-326. $21.99. "To everything there is a season," writes the author of Ecclesiastes (3:1-8),...

Sinners Welcome.(Book review)
June 22, 2006... Sinners Welcome. By Mary Karr. New York: HarperCollins, 2006. ISBN 0-06-077654-4. Pp. 1-93. $22.95. Mary Karr's fourth collection of poetry, Sinners Welcome, includes forty-four new poems and an afterword essay, "Facing Altars: Poetry and...

A Slender Grace: Poems.(Book review)
June 22, 2006... A Slender Grace: Poems. By Rod Jellema. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2004. ISBN: 0-8028-2782-9 [paper] Pp. xiii + 116. $18.00. How right that the Conference on Christianity and Literature should have designated this book of poems by...

After Campanella: To the Sun.(Poem)
June 22, 2006... After Campanella: To the Sun All winter long the hidden life was sleeping: Sap still in trees and stems of flowers brittle. The ground was frozen, pale, the naked earth Hardened in shrinking distance, and bodies Drew...

Without regret.(Poem)
June 22, 2006... Without regret The slug--how he melts (the psalmist tells us) as he flows over stones, painting a trail of light that leads me nowhere I need to go. The snake writes his way through scrub, bruising no...

News and announcements.
June 22, 2006... The Mideastern CCL Regional Conference will be held Oct. 12-13, 2006, at Cedarville University in Ohio. The theme will be "Incarnation in the Classroom: Mentoring the Next Generation of Scholars, Teachers, and Writers." Keynote speaker will be...

As iron on iron.(Poem)
June 22, 2006... As iron on iron Walking this morning I began to think how everything wears its other down. How this sidewalk smoothes my rubber soles. How stomachs slick their food, waves burnish shattered bottles to sea glass, ...