Literary Paths to Religious Understanding: Essays on Dryden, Pope, Keats, George Eliot, Joyce, T.S. Eliot, and E.B. White

About the Author G. DOUGLAS ATKINS is professor of English at the University of Kansas, USA and author or co-editor of thirteen books, including the forthcoming On the Familiar Essay (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). Product Description This highly readable book represents a unique approach to the controverted matter of the relations of literature and religion, eschewing linear argument in favor of a nuanced essayistic manner that elucidates texts and issues of immediate and lasting concern. Review "Atkins is a complete master of the literary works he discusses and the secondary criticism surrounding them. His citations from those works are succinct and just right; he is a brilliant reader and interpreter. His recovery of a religious Ezra Pound, for one, is ground breaking and controversial." - Will Willimon, Bishop, the United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Alabama and author of The Early Sermons of Karl Barth"Literary Paths to Religious Understanding is a work that deals with important issues - important humanly and professionally. Its audience should be a wide one. Like Geoffrey Hartman towards the end of his career (with whom he has long acknowledged an affinity), Atkins seems to be stepping away from a narrowly scholarly path to explore issues that have stimulated him for some time, and that will also stimulate his readers." - Jan Gorak, Professor of English, University of Denver