Epilogue

Abstract

This chapter considers the impact of the modernist crisis in theology on contemporary philosophy, cultural criticism, print culture, and literary production. It shows that the ways in which Rilke, Eliot, and Miłosz reconfigured the tension between key terms of the theological debates—including the seemingly binary oppositions between the sacred and the secular; dogma and individual experience; spiritual freedom and authority—were shaped by the ongoing geopolitical developments, including the Russian Revolution, the two World Wars, and the Cold War. The chapter considers the legacy of theological modernism that informed the development of the nouvelle théologie, and the reforms initiated by the Second Vatican Council. It examines Miłosz’s critical reflections on the changes to the language of Catholic liturgy and Eliot’s criticism of the use of contemporary idiom in the New English Bible to demonstrate the two poets’ continued engagement with the relationship between religious imagination, language, and everyday experience.