Sacred and Secular Scriptures: A Catholic Approach to Literature - Softcover

Nicholas Boyle

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0232525757 ISBN 13: 9780232525755

Publisher: Darton,Longman & Todd Ltd, 2004

Synopsis

What do the Bible and other Great Books of literature have in common, and what makes the Bible different? Nicholas Boyle seeks to answer this question in a way that will appeal both to the specialist and to the general reader. He uses philosophical tools derived from a discussion with, among others, Schleiermacher and Hegel, Lévinas and Ricoeur, to support the conclusions of Chenu and Vatican II about how to read the Bible. He then shows how these tools make possible a new critical method – a Catholic approach to literature – which he applies to literary texts as diverse as Faust, Moby-Dick, The Lord of the Rings, and the James Bond novels. This book offers new insights both to those professionally interested in theology and hermeneutics and to anyone who wants to deepen their experience of the moral and spiritual wealth of secular books and secular culture in general.

About this title

Review

"There is a need to develop a concept of literature that is capable of accommodating both the Bible and what we have normally understood by literature without forcing either into a costume in which they look constrained or ridiculous: Malvolio in cross-garters or Huck Finn in a suit."

"Nicholas Boyle . . . may not be a familiar name in North American intellectual circles, but he should be. Sacred and Secular Scriptures is a hugely ambitious work, but it never comes across as strained or overreaching. . . .[T]he rewards of reading the book as a whole are plentiful, and Boyle's exquisite prose style and habit of pausing occasionally to summarize make even the most clotted stretches of Germanic thought clear. As a storyteller he never lets the reader forget how much has been at stake, theologically and culturally, in the struggle to understand the meaning and authority of Scripture. . . . [H]is own synthesis is masterful."--Commonweal

"This book is a welcome contribution. . . . "--Choice

." . . this work . . . demonstrate[s] the finer things that literary criticism can achieve when it seeks something of the divine in a body of writing. . . . "--First Things

"Nicholas Boyle, professor of German literary and intellectual history at Cambridge University, has written a remarkable book. . . . Boyle's distinctive proposal is that the site of theology . . . is occupied by both sacred and secular scriptures. Thus his book explores, in a creative and stimulating way, both the distinction and overlap between these scriptures. In doing so he elaborates a Catholic hermeneutical approach to literature. . . . [A] fine study. . . ."--Worship

About the Author

Nicholas Boyle is a Fellow of Magdalene College and Professor of German Literary and Intellectual History at the University of Cambridge.

Edition details

• Publisher: Darton,Longman & Todd Ltd
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0232525757
• ISBN 13: 9780232525755
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304