Image: Daguerreotype of the poet Emily Dickinson, taken circa 1848, cropped and retouched. (Original is scratched.) From the Todd-Bingham Picture Collection and Family Papers, Yale University Manuscripts & Archives Digital Images Database, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. In the public domain. Via Wikimedia Commons. Reflection Emily Dickinson's poem, “This World is not Conclusion” is a paradigmatic example of her ambivalence about Christian faith. It reveals, as many of her poems do, her struggle … [Read more...] about Faith and Doubt in Emily Dickinson’s “This World is not Conclusion”
Browning’s “Karshish the Arab Physician”
Mark Hansard shares another exploration of faith in Victorian literature. See previous posts exploring Browning and faith and Gerard Manley Hopkins and how aesthetic experience can point to God. … [Read more...] about Browning’s “Karshish the Arab Physician”
Piercing the o’erstretched doubt: Browning’s Apologetic in “A Death in the Desert”
Robert Browning, the Victorian poet of the 19th century, is mainly remembered today for his fascinating dramatic monologues like My Last Duchess, and his marriage to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who was the more famous poet at the time they married. Browning became a formidable poet in his own right, and is nearly always included in contemporary anthologies of English Literature, as is his wife. … [Read more...] about Piercing the o’erstretched doubt: Browning’s Apologetic in “A Death in the Desert”
Aesthetic Experience and the Existence of God (Scholar’s Compass)
Reflection Recently I found myself reading excerpts from James Sire's book, Apologetics Beyond Reason. (You can read ESN's review here). As someone with a literature background myself, I found Sire's description of the purpose of literature, and an aesthetic experience through great literature as a pointer to the transcendent, very interesting. Sire says “When we read great literature’we are lifted out of ourselves into another world.” When we have an aesthetic experience through such literature, we have “direct … [Read more...] about Aesthetic Experience and the Existence of God (Scholar’s Compass)
Book Review: A Change of Heart, by Thomas Oden
Thomas C. Oden is a fascinating figure in the history of 20th Century theology, and his new autobiography, A Change of Heart, is a fascinating read. Known for The Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture and Agenda for Theology, Oden writes a riveting tale about his early commitment to liberal theology and socialism, and then a 180-degree turn as he embraced classic Christianity and conservative thought in the early 1970s. Truly a remarkable story, Oden's work is well worth the time. … [Read more...] about Book Review: A Change of Heart, by Thomas Oden