Tag Archives: Covenantal Literature

An important concept in psychoanalysis is “the unconscious,” the part of us that operates without our direct knowledge. Here is how Peter Barry describes it. The content of the unconscious is, by definition, unknowable, but everything we do is affected by it: we can guess at the nature of this content by observing its effects…Continue reading “Psychoanalysis and Providence”

In Beginning Theory, Peter Barry compares structuralism and post-structuralism in four categories. The two schools of literary criticism deny a transcendent God or truth. That’s a point of similarity. The four differences in Barry’s description correspond to the following four points of the covenant. HIERARCHY: Structuralism and Post-structuralism disagree about which discipline should give literaryContinue reading “Structuralism and Post-Structuralism: A Covenantal Comparison”

In his book Beginning Theory, Peter Barry reveals the creed of contemporary literary criticism. Politics is pervasive. Language is constitutive. Truth is provisional. Meaning is contingent. Human nature is a myth. Barry writes that this list is the “basic frame of mind which theory embodies.” Notice how the creed forms a covenant. Politics is godContinue reading “The Creed of Contemporary Literary Criticism”

A.S. Byatt’s Possession uses resurrection as a recurring theme. Words contain life. Through language, particularly art, the dead can live again. In their epistolary romance, Randolph Ash and Christabel LaMotte argue about Jesus Christ’s divinity. I don’t think Byatt thinks it is a crucial conversation for the novel, merely a resonant example of the book’sContinue reading “Possession: Theme”

A.S. Byatt’s Possession is one of my favorite novels of the past fifty years. It marries dense and allusive language with a page-turning plot. I’m going to teach it in my literary theory course this spring, so I’m rereading it now to begin preparing my lectures. I’m shocked at how much I’ve missed in myContinue reading “What I Missed”

David Foster Wallace’s Oblivion: Stories includes eight tales about life in the late 20th and early 21st century. The book’s theme is that the information onslaught of life in the 1990s and 2000s causes us to forget (the root meaning of “oblivion”) not only what is most important but also what is most obvious. WallaceContinue reading “A Covenantal Outline for Oblivion: Stories”

Over the next two months, I plan to review the following ten books. Through New Eyes by James Jordan An Experiment in Criticism by CS Lewis Sound and Sense by Laurence Perrine Anatomy of Criticism by Northrop Frye Literary Approaches to Biblical Interpretation by Tremper Longman III Christianity and Literature: Philosophical Foundations and Critical PracticeContinue reading “10 Books to Review”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s “In Memoriam A.H.H.” captures the grief of losing a friend. More profoundly, it articulates the more significant doubts such grief occasions. The poem contains many oft-quoted phrases that you probably didn’t know came from this poem. It was Tennyson who called Nature “red in tooth and claw,” and it was Tennyson whoContinue reading “Tennyson’s Psalm”

Literary criticism takes time. I don’t find the time itself difficult. Instead, I struggle with the best way to spend that time. Herman Rapaport’s The Literary Theory Toolkit gave me an answer. In the book’s preface, Rapaport lists a literary critic’s necessary skills: Knowledge of an author’s life and times Competence in the author’s spoken/writtenContinue reading “Barriers to Entry”

Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes. Proverbs 26:4-5 When I read, I look for the author’s intention. Authorial intention has its opponents, but I think it must inform our initial responses. It’s partContinue reading “Christian Literary Criticism: Intrinsic and Extrinsic”