Cambridge Scholars Publishing New Insights into Literature and Catholicism in the 19th and 20th Centuries

This volume deepens thinking and research about literature and Catholicism in the 19th and 20th centuries. It develops the understanding that a number of acclaimed literary texts have reflected, in imaginative and memorable ways, a distinctive Catholic sensibility, identity and philosophy of life, and, in so doing, have shed light on profound spiritual experiences in a variety of fictional settings. Review “The rich collection of essays gathered here are both refreshingly varied and vitally focused. Taken together, they shed vital light on distinctive features at work in the Catholic literary imagination. The mixture of theoretical considerations, close readings, and a compelling array of authors―from Chesterton and Campbell to Merton, Milosz, and Tartt―combine to provide valuable commentary about the dynamism that exists among literature, poetry, theology, and belief. The scope of critical and scholarly engagement is thus expanded and enriched by this volume and readers will be nourished by its wide-ranging insights.”Michael P. Murphy, PhDDirector, Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage, Loyola University“A perceptive commentary which, like the first volume, vividly demonstrates how key literary texts from the 19th and 20th centuries still echo the distinctive nature of Catholic life as well as its significance for our own times. Each writer offers insight and discernment to stimulate the mind and ennoble the soul.'Dr Michael HurleyReader in Literature and Theology, University of Cambridge About the Author Rev Dr Paul Rowan STD, PhL, has been a diocesan priest of the Archdiocese of Liverpool, England, since 1995, and is currently working in the diocese of Portsmouth, England. He is Assistant Head and Director of Catholic Life and Formation, Young People and Skills at Beaulieu Convent School, Jersey. He is also the Director of the Beaulieu Institute for Religious Literacy, and is the author of The Scrappy Evangelist. A New Apologetics for Today (2017). His research interests include belief and unbelief, the new evangelisation, G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, power, abuse and the Catholic hierarchy, LGBT+ and women in the Catholic Church. Dr David Torevell taught in Catholic secondary schools before entering Higher Education in 1992. He was previously Honorary Research Fellow at Leeds Trinity University, UK, and is now an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at Liverpool Hope University, UK and Visiting Professor at Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, Ireland. He is the author of Losing the Sacred: Ritual, Modernity and Liturgical Reform (2000) and Liturgy and the Beauty of the Unknown: Another Place (2007). He has edited many books and published numerous articles in international journals on a range of theological, philosophical and educational issues. His research interests include Catholic theology, theology and literature, theology and the arts, sport and religion, and Catholic education.