Description
W. H. Auden, T. S. Eliot, William Golding, Elizabeth Jennings, C. S. Lewis, Flannery O'Connor, Stevie Smith . . . These are some of the great poets and novelists whose struggles with faith find expression in their works, and who demonstrate the fascinatingly different forms that faith can take in different times and places. Richard Harries considers the work of twenty of these writers, painting vivid pictures of their lives and times. He also provides numerous critically sympathetic insights into the spiritual dimension of their writings. The result is a book for readers of all religious persuasions, especially those who are fascinated by the ways in which faith is refracted through the lens of great poetry and fiction.
Perceptive portraits of twenty renowned writers, with illuminating reflections on their struggles with faith and life, and on the way faith is explored in some their greatest works
About the Author
Richard Harries is both a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and an Honorary Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences. After nineteen years as Bishop of Oxford he was made a Life Peer (Lord Harries of Pentregarth) and he remains active in the House of Lords on human rights issue. He is Emeritus Gresham Professor of Divinity and a Visiting Professor of Theology at King's College, London, where he was formerly Dean. His voice is well known to many through his regular contributions to the Today programme.
Reviews
In this enormously engaging book, Richard Harries shares with us his reading of many of the great writers of modernity, inviting us to attend with him to their wrestling with the hardest questions of human existence before God - and sometimes before the apparent absence of God. These are enriching and provoking reflections, testimony to the way that the Christian gospel continues to be a vehicle for the most serious thinking and imagining in our culture. * Rowan Williams, Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge *
A compelling narrative of the modern quest for meaning and the expression, in literature, of our age's deep wrestling with faith. * Jane Shaw, Principal of Harris Manchester College, Oxford *
Richard Harries sweeps through writers from Dostoevsky to Marilynne Robinson, including Emily Dickinson, Samuel Beckett and Evelyn Waugh - and points out how their Christianity was sometimes submerged and often neglected by critics and readers. This book rightly and authoritatively, without beating the drum, resurrects the profound spiritual tradition of Christianity over a century that often claimed to have stamped it out. Here, see it alive and well, subtly and with fine scholarship unveiled. This is a rich and important book. I hugely enjoyed it. * Melvyn Bragg, writer and broadcaster *
Book Information
ISBN 9780281079346
Author Richard Harries
Format Paperback
Page Count 256
Imprint SPCK Publishing
Publisher SPCK Publishing
Perceptive portraits of twenty renowned writers, with illuminating reflections on their struggles with faith and life, and on the way faith is explored in some their greatest works
About the Author
Richard Harries is both a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and an Honorary Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences. After nineteen years as Bishop of Oxford he was made a Life Peer (Lord Harries of Pentregarth) and he remains active in the House of Lords on human rights issue. He is Emeritus Gresham Professor of Divinity and a Visiting Professor of Theology at King's College, London, where he was formerly Dean. His voice is well known to many through his regular contributions to the Today programme.
Reviews
In this enormously engaging book, Richard Harries shares with us his reading of many of the great writers of modernity, inviting us to attend with him to their wrestling with the hardest questions of human existence before God - and sometimes before the apparent absence of God. These are enriching and provoking reflections, testimony to the way that the Christian gospel continues to be a vehicle for the most serious thinking and imagining in our culture. * Rowan Williams, Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge *
A compelling narrative of the modern quest for meaning and the expression, in literature, of our age's deep wrestling with faith. * Jane Shaw, Principal of Harris Manchester College, Oxford *
Richard Harries sweeps through writers from Dostoevsky to Marilynne Robinson, including Emily Dickinson, Samuel Beckett and Evelyn Waugh - and points out how their Christianity was sometimes submerged and often neglected by critics and readers. This book rightly and authoritatively, without beating the drum, resurrects the profound spiritual tradition of Christianity over a century that often claimed to have stamped it out. Here, see it alive and well, subtly and with fine scholarship unveiled. This is a rich and important book. I hugely enjoyed it. * Melvyn Bragg, writer and broadcaster *
Book Information
ISBN 9780281079346
Author Richard Harries
Format Paperback
Page Count 256
Imprint SPCK Publishing
Publisher SPCK Publishing
