The Sacred and Secular Canon in Romanticism - (Romanticism in Perspective: Texts, Cultures, Histories) by D Jasper (Hardcover)

About the Book

An interdisciplinary study of Romanticism which focuses on the reception of the Biblical canon in poetry, art and theory.

Book Synopsis

This book is an interdisciplinary study of Romanticism which focuses on the reception of the Biblical canon in poetry, art and theory. The Bible is acknowledged as the heart of European culture, but as its status as the sacred text of Judaism and Christianity becomes questionable, it remains at the turning-point between sacred and secular art in the modern world. The insights of Romanticism are crucial for our understanding of postmodernism as a fundamentally religious movement which acknowledges both the death and rebirth of religious language.

From the Back Cover

This book focuses on some of the greatest writers and artists of European Romanticism, including S. T. Coleridge, Wordsworth, J. M. W. Turner, Goethe, Holderlin and, in the later nineteenth century, Matthew Arnold. Concluding with a discussion of the significance of Romanticism for our understanding of postmodernity, its various chapters explore the place of the biblical canon as the central element in the shift from the sacred to the secular, and the place of the Bible in the development of our concept of Weltliteratur, or world literature, as definitive of culture. This book will be of interest to all concerned with art, literature and the development of biblical criticism and religious thought.

Review Quotes

Jasper draws an astute portrait of the evolving relationship between Scripture and literature. . .[His] argument merits thoughtful consideration. Anglican Theological Review

About the Author

DAVID JASPER is a Reader in Literature and Theology in the University of Glasgow. He holds degrees in English Literature and Theology from the Universities of Cambridge, Oxford and Durham. The founding Director of the Centre for the Study of Literature, Theology and the Arts, he is Editor of the Macmillan series Studies in Religion and Literature. The author of five earlier books, he has lectured widely in Europe, North America, South Africa and Australia. He is at present Vice Dean of Divinity at the University of Glasgow.