Muriel Spark, Existentialism and the Art of Death - by Cairns Craig (Paperback)

About the Book

This book proposes that Christian existentialism and, in particular, the work of Søren Kierkegaard, helped shape Spark's religious commitments and her artistic innovations.

Book Synopsis

Contextualises Muriel Spark's writings in the tradition of Christian existentialism and its insistence on 'being towards death'
This book proposes that Christian existentialism and, in particular, the work of Søren Kierkegaard, helped shape Spark's religious commitments and her artistic innovations. Because of the prominence, after the Second World War, of the atheistic existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre, it is often forgotten that existentialism was originally a Christian philosophy, shaped by followers of Kierkegaard such as Karl Jaspers and Gabriel Marcel.
Craig traces in Spark's writings both the influence of Kierkegaard and of Spark's resistance to Sartre's co-option of existentialism to an atheistic agenda. Kierkegaard's analysis of the nature of the 'aesthetic' as a false mode of existence that has to be transcended by the ethical and then by the religious provides a fundamental structure for Spark's satirical analyses of the failings of the modern world.
Key Features
Provides detailed analyses of a substantial proportion of Spark's novelsExplains the philosophies of Kierkegaard and Sartre designed for readers without specialist philosophical knowledgeRe-reads major Spark works, such as The Ballad of Peckham Rye, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Hothouse by the East River, Symposium, The Only ProblemAnalyses the ways in which Spark situates her plots within the major historical conflicts and social transformations of the twentieth century

From the Back Cover

Contextualises Muriel Spark's writings in the tradition of Christian existentialism and its insistence on 'being towards death' Muriel Spark, Existentialism and The Art of Death proposes that Christian existentialism and, in particular, the work of Søren Kierkegaard, helped shape Spark's religious commitments and her artistic innovations. Because of the prominence, after the Second World War, of the atheistic existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre, it is often forgotten that existentialism was originally a Christian philosophy, shaped by followers of Kierkegaard such as Karl Jaspers and Gabriel Marcel. Craig traces in Spark's writings both the influence of Kierkegaard and of Spark's resistance to Sartre's co-option of existentialism to an atheistic agenda. Kierkegaard's analysis of the nature of the 'aesthetic' as a false mode of existence that has to be transcended by the ethical and then by the religious provides a fundamental structure for Spark's satirical analyses of the failings of the modern world. Cairns Craig is Director of the Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies at the University of Aberdeen.

Review Quotes

With scintillating chapters on Kierkegaard, Sartre and her own profound reflections on art and death, Craig restores Spark to her rightful place at the top table of European thinkers. Coming on the back of Spark's centenary year this is a book that will resonate with her readers and, beyond Spark studies, will be of interest to all those wrestling with writing, religion and the philosophy and poetics of perception.-- "Willy Maley, University of Glasgow"

About the Author

Cairns Craig is Glucksman Professor Irish and Scottish Studies at the University of Aberdeen and previously Professor of Modern and Scottish Literature at the University of Edinburgh. He was the general editor of the four volume History of Scottish Literature published in 1987 by Aberdeen University Press. He has written extensively on modern poetry, on the history of Scottish culture and on the novel in Scotland. His monographs include Yeats, Eliot, Pound and the Politics of Poetry (1981), The Modern Scottish Novel (1999), Intending Scotland (2009), The Wealth of the Nation: Scotland, Culture and Independence (2018) and Muriel Spark, Existentialism and the Art of Death (2018). He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and of the British Academy.