Modes of Faith – Seculer Surrogates for Lost Religious Belief: Secular Surrogates for Lost Religious Belief - Hardcover

Ziolkowski, Theodore

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0226983633 ISBN 13: 9780226983639

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2007

Synopsis

In the decades surrounding World War I, religious belief receded in the face of radical new ideas such as Marxism, modern science, Nietzschean philosophy, and critical theology. "Modes of Faith" addresses both this decline of religious belief and the new modes of secular faith that took religion's place in the minds of many writers and poets. Theodore Ziolkowski here examines the motives for this embrace of the secular, locating new modes of faith in art, escapist travel, socialism, politicized myth, and utopian visions. James Joyce, he reveals, turned to art as an escape, while Hermann Hesse made a pilgrimage to India in search of enlightenment. Other writers, such as Roger Martin du Gard and Thomas Mann, sought temporary solace in communism or myth. And H. G. Wells, Ziolkowski argues, took refuge in utopian dreams projected in another dimension altogether. Rooted in innovative and careful comparative reading of the work of writers from France, England, Germany, Italy, and Russia, "Modes of Faith" is a critical masterpiece by a distinguished literary scholar that offers an abundance of insight to anyone interested in the human compulsion to believe in forces that transcend the individual.

About this title

About the Author

Theodore Ziolkowski is professor emeritus of German and comparative literature at Princeton University. Among his many books are Fictional Transfigurations of Jesus, The Mirror of Justice, and Ovid and the Moderns.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0226983633
• ISBN 13: 9780226983639
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 296