The Edinburgh Companion to Modernism, Myth and Religion

Presents Authoritative Analyses Of The Religious Terrain Of The Modernist Periodpresents Authoritative Scholarly Analyses Of The Religious Terrain Of The Modernist Periodincludes 30 + Specially Commissioned Chapters On Modernist Myth, Religion And Alternative Spirituality Representing The Breadth And Freshness Of Research In This Areaforegrounds Early-career Scholars As Well As Internationally Recognized Researchers Who Have Illuminated The Field Of Modernist Discourse Around Religion And Mythresponds To And Builds Upon A Renewed Scholarly Fascination With Modernist Experiment, Religious History, And Theology – A Field Of Interest Which Has Energized The Humanities, Especially In Literary And Cultural Studieshighlights The Interconnections Between Spirituality, Aesthetics, And Politics In This Perioduntil Fairly Recently, The ‘authorised Version’ Of Cultural Modernism Stated That The Secularising Trends Of Liberal Modernity – And The Resultant Emphasis On Irony, Parody And Dissolution In Modernist Artforms – Had Pushed Religion To The Edges Of Early Twentieth-century Culture. This Companion Complicates This Understanding By Furnishing Students And Academic Researchers With More Nuanced And Probing Assessments Of The Intersections And Tensions Between Religion, Myth And Creativity During This Half Century Of Geopolitical Ferment. It Addresses The Variety And Specificity Of Modernist Spiritualities As Well As The Intricately Textured And Shifting Standpoints That Modernist Figures Have Occupied In Relation To Theological Traditions, Practices, Creeds And Institutions. What Emerges Is A Multi-textured Account Of Modernism’s Deep-rooted Concern With The Historical And Established Forms Of Religion, As Well As New Engagements With ‘occulture’ And Indigenous Traditions. In Short, The Companion Supplies A Lively And Original Exploration Of The Aesthetic, Publishing, Technological And Philosophical Trends That Shape Debates About Spirituality, Community And Self From The 1890s To The 1940s And Beyond. Frontmatter -- Contents -- Figures -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction -- Part I: Key Figures And Movements -- 1 Ezra Pound Versus T. S. Eliot On Christianity, Apocalypse And Myth, 1934–1945 -- 2 Virginia Woolf And Christianity -- 3 H.d. And Spirituality -- 4 D. H. Lawrence’s Dark God -- 5 Harlem’s Bible Stories: Christianity And The New Negro Movement -- 6 The Jewish East End And Modernism -- Part Ii: Secularity, Disenchantment, Re-enchantment -- 7 Troubled: Reverse Theodicy In Ward, Eliot And Baldwin -- 8 Modernism, Secular Hope And The Posthumous Trace -- 9 C. K. Ogden, I. A. Richards And ‘word Magic’: Rethinking The Relation Of Language To Myth -- 10 Jean Toomer And The Face Of The Real: Between Sacred Presence And Disenchanting Violence -- 11 Modernism And Political Theology -- Part Iii: Religious Forms -- 12 Virginia Woolf’s Agnostic, Visionary Mysticism: Approaching And Retreating From The Sacred -- 13 Modernism, Abstraction And Spirituality: Barbara Hepworth And Hilma Af Klint -- 14 Modernism And The Hymn -- 15 William James, Mysticism And The Modernist Epiphany -- Part Iv: Myth, Folklore And Magic -- 16 Modernist Mythopoeia -- 17 Yeats’s Sacred Grove -- 18 The Modernist Grail Quest -- 19 The Burial Of The Dead In Mann’s The Magic Mountain -- Part V: Modern Esotericism, Pantheism And Spiritualism -- 20 The Modernist Afterlives Of Theosophy -- 21 Rebecca West, Modern Spiritualism And The Problem Of Other Minds -- 22 ‘what God Hath Joined, Let No Pragmatist Put Asunder’: May Sinclair’s Philosophical Idealism As Surrogate Religion -- Part Vi: Religious Space, Time And Ritual Practice -- 23 Sacred Ground: Orthodoxy, Poetry And Religious Change -- 24 Liminal Spaces And Spiritual Practice In Naomi Mitchison, Keri Hulme And Lorna Goodison -- 25 Finnegans Wake, Modernist Time Machines And Re-enchanted Time -- Part Vii: Global Transitions And Exchange -- 26 Global Seekers In The Quest: A Case Study Of An Occult Periodical’s Worldly Religion -- 27 ‘a Miserable Attenuation’: T. S. Eliot, Rabindranath Tagore And Irving Babbitt -- 28 ‘part Heathen, Part Christian’: Recording Transitions And Amalgamations Of Belief Systems In Constantine Cavafy’s Poetry -- Part Viii: Queer[y]ing Religion -- 29 ‘it Was Really Rather Fine To Be Suffering’: Radclyffe Hall At The Queer Intersection Of Masochism And Martyrdom -- 30 The Byzantine Modernism Of Djuna Barnes -- 31 ‘mixed Sex Cases Among Goats’: The Modernist Sublime -- Contributor Biographies -- Index Ed. By Suzanne Hobson. Mode Of Access: Internet Via World Wide Web. In English.