Modernism and Theology

This is the first book-length study to examine the interface between literary and theological modernisms. It provides a comprehensive account of literary responses to the modernist crisis in Christian theology from a transnational and interdenominational perspective. It offers a cultural history of the period, considering a wide range of literary and historical sources, including novels, drama, poetry, literary criticism, encyclicals, theological and philosophical treatises, periodical publications, and wartime propaganda. By contextualising literary modernism within the cultural, religious, and political landscape, the book reveals fundamental yet largely forgotten connections between literary and theological modernisms. It shows that early-twentieth-century authors, poets, and critics, including Rainer Maria Rilke, T. S. Eliot, and Czeslaw Milosz, actively engaged with the debates between modernist and neo-scholastic theologians raging across Europe. These debates contributed to developing new ways of thinking about the relationship between religion and literature, and informed contemporary critical writings on aesthetics and poetics.

1. Introduction. - 2. A Theological History of Modernism. - 3. Spiritualising the War: Religion, Conflict, and Politics. - 4. Spaces of Encounter: Theological Modernism and Neo-Scholasticism in Literature and Literary Criticism. - 5. The Ripening Dark God of Modernity: Religion and Creativity in Rainer Maria Rilke s and Lou Andreas-Salomé s Writings. - 6. A `raid on the absolute : Dogmatic Tradition and Mystical Experience in T. S. Eliot s Poetry and Criticism. - 7. `A passionate pursuit of the Real : Theology and Poetics in Czes aw Mi osz s Writings. - 8. Epilogue.