The Incarnational Art Of Flannery O'Connor argues that O'Connor designed a unique asthetic to defy the Gnostic dualisms that characterize American intellectual and spiritual life. Focusing on stories with artist figures, objets d'art, child protagonists, and embodied images, Lake describes how O'Connor's fiction actively resists romantic theories of the imagination and religious life by highlighting the epistemological necessity of the body. Ultimately O'Connor challenges the romantic and modern notion of the artist as a fire-stealing Prometheus and replaces it with a notion of the artist as a locally committed craftsman. Drawing upon M. M. Bakhtin's early essays in Art and Answerability and Toward A Philosophy Of the Act, Lake illustrates O'Connor's conviction that art deliberately assigns the highest value of transcendental beauty to those beings least valued by the modern world, and challenges us to do the same. The book culminates with an original reading of "Parker's Back" that shows how in art, as in life, true knowledge comes to us through our own grotesque bodies and those of others. Unafraid of the mystery of being human, art can be the place where we encounter anew the world as more than what the intellect can unravel.

About the Author
Christina Bieber Lake is the Clyde S. Kilby Professor of English at Wheaton College where she teaches classes in Contemporary American Literature and Literary Theory. All of her work explores the importance of engaging the moral imagination through the reading of fiction, poetry, and other imaginative work. An award-winning and committed teacher, she is available as a consultant for institutions who would like to explore how educators can remain inspired to teach. Lake resides in Carol Stream, Illinois.


Book Information
ISBN 9780881467062
Author Christina Bieber Lake
Format Paperback
Page Count 268
Imprint Mercer University Press
Publisher Mercer University Press