The Church and Literature

Christianity and the book have been closely intertwined since the religion's very beginning. The Word itself takes a variety of literary forms: apologetic and polemic texts, sermons, poems, hymns, spiritual autobiography and Christian philosophical reflection. Likewise, many genres of novel, theatre and travel-writing often deal with Christian themes. This volume explores some of the ways in which the Church has both shaped and featured in the literature of different periods, with a particular emphasis on British literature in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The understanding of literature invoked here is a catholic one, reflecting the universality of Christianity itself, and allowing the exploration of a range of forms of writing emerging in the course of the Church's history. Among the authors discussed are Thomas More, John Milton, Isaac Williams, W. E. Heygate, Charles Dickens, Benjamin Disraeli, Edna Lyall, Silas and Joseph Hocking, Robert Browning, Charles Williams, Canon Patrick Augustine Sheehan, Dame Rose Macauley, D. H. Lawrence, W. H. Auden and Ellis Peters. Through this wide-ranging and impressive collection, The Church and Literature illuminates the enduring relationship between the Church and literary creation. Both literary scholars and historians with an interest in Christian culture will find this book invaluable. PETER CLARKE is Reader in Medieval History at the University of Southampton. CHARLOTTE METHUEN is Lecturer in Church History at the University of Glasgow.