ANDREW HASS, DAVID JASPER and ELISABETH JAY (eds), The Oxford Handbook of English Literature and Theology.

Abstract

‘AND the Word (Logos) was made flesh’ (John 1:14); ‘and they two shall be one flesh’ (Ephesians 5:31). When do two distinct disciplines (logoi) become one? This volume seeks to set out the approximate working parameters and boundaries of a relatively new inter-disciplinary discipline—‘English Literature and Theology’. The future is bright according to one editor (Hass)—this is ‘a field that, in its very evolution, seems to be outstripping its own designations, “literature” and “theology” ’ (842). Faced with the no-doubt sobering task of charting this dynamic marriage in a meaningful way which will stand the test of time, the editors sensibly opted to allow the contributors a considerable degree of freedom. So, rather than designing the volume as a comprehensive survey intended largely for reference (what I would normally imagine a ‘handbook’ to be), they invited the contributors to address ‘key moments and developments in the mutual engagement of theology and literature’ (xv). This has resulted in a good measure of high-quality, discursive contributions, some of which are outstanding. There is a drawback though: as one of the editors readily admits (Jay, 12), their emphasis on ‘key moments’ has resulted in a clear bias towards historical themes and relatively traditional texts, so that the resultant demography might be described largely as white English, male, and Anglican, hardly reflecting the breadth of contemporary literary study nor of theology. Interestingly, the contributions which concern ‘outsiders’ who struggled against the demographic flow (e.g. Joyce, Newman, George Eliot) are among the most penetrating.