The Present Word
Culture, Society and the Site of Literature
Essays in Honour of Nicholas Boyle

Edited by John Walker

Legenda (General Series)

Legenda

25 September 2013  •  212pp

ISBN: 978-1-907975-61-5 (hardback)  •  RRP £80, $110, €95

GermanTheologyPhilosophyCriticism


This book addresses three key areas of intellectual enquiry: literary criticism, cultural critique, and philosophical theology. Once closely related, especially in the Catholic tradition, they often appear to be separate and unconnected domains in the modern university. The work of Nicholas Boyle is one of the most significant recent attempts to reconnect them. Responding to that initiative, The Present Word challenges this fragmentation of knowledge.

Several of the essays reflect a major change of emphasis in literary studies over the last two decades: the reconnection of an idea of literary criticism closely related to the experience of reading, and the wider societal and political concerns addressed by Cultural Studies. Contributors also debate, from both perspectives, whether theological concepts can illuminate the secular culture in which literature is written and read.

John Walker is Senior Lecturer in German at Birkbeck College, London, where he served as Head of the School of Languages, Linguistics and Culture from 2006-2009.

Contents:

1-9

Introduction
John Walker

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10-21

The Human Epiphany: Reflections on Goethe’s Iphigenie auf Tauris and Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale
Martin Swales

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22-43

Cognitive Mapping: Adam, Venus, and Faust
John McCarthy

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44-51

Goethe as Secular Icon
T. J. Reed

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52-60

A Poem by August Wilhelm Schlegel: ‘Zueignung des Trauerspiels Romeo und Julia’
Roger Paulin

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61-69

Mignon and the Idea of the Secret
Charlotte Lee

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70-79

Goethe and Mörike: ‘Urworte. Orphisch’ and ‘Besuch in Urach’
Regina Sachers

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80-91

‘Short of History’: Les Murray and the Communion of Saints
Ian Cooper

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92-101

Ways of Knowing: Blaise Pascal, Angelus Silesius and Catharina Regina von Greiffenberg
Helen Watanabe-O'Kelly

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102-108

Enlightened Mythology: Thomas Mann and Myth
Christoph Jamme

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109-124

Goethe’s Faust, Thomas Mann’s Doktor Faustus and the Site of Literature
John Walker

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126-137

Goethe and Machiavelli
Ritchie Robertson

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138-149

‘Just one damned thing after another’? Some Reflections on the Philosophy of History
Barry Nisbet

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150-159

Seven Types of Forgetting
Paul Connerton

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160-183

Seamus Heaney and Catholicism
Eamon Duffy

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184-194

Christian Humanism and Higher Education
Mark Ogden

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195-201

Postscript
Nicholas Boyle

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Bibliography entry:

Walker, John (ed.), The Present Word: Culture, Society and the Site of Literature (Legenda, 2013)

First footnote reference: 35 The Present Word: Culture, Society and the Site of Literature, ed. by John Walker (Legenda, 2013), p. 21.

Subsequent footnote reference: 37 Walker, p. 47.

(To see how these citations were worked out, follow this link.)

Bibliography entry:

Walker, John (ed.). 2013. The Present Word: Culture, Society and the Site of Literature (Legenda)

Example citation: ‘A quotation occurring on page 21 of this work’ (Walker 2013: 21).

Example footnote reference: 35 Walker 2013: 21.

(To see how these citations were worked out, follow this link.)


This Legenda title was first published by Modern Humanities Research Association and Maney Publishing but rights to it are now held by Modern Humanities Research Association and Routledge.

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