Lonergan and Poetry 1

Abstract

In one of the exchanges between Fergus Kerr and William Mathews on Lonergan, Kerr describes Lonergan’s treatment of literary language in Method in Theology as ‘jejune and unsatisfactory’, as lacking in ‘delicacy and inwardness’; a ‘lacuna’ in his sytematic exposition (New Blackfriars, February 1976, p. 60). This may seem a little harsh given that Lonergan’s overarching concern in that book is not literature but a viable method for contemporary theology. But even as a convinced Lonerganian, I believe Fergus Kerr, in reporting somewhat uncritically the findings of what is, overall, a bad book (Looking at Lonergan’s Method), has picked out a weakness or blind spot in Lonergan’s philosophical awareness. There can be no doubting the somewhat wooden and—the word is inescapable—external character of Lonergan’s pronouncements on literary language and, I would add, on art generally. William Mathews tends to agree, though he adds a tantalizing qualification: ‘I agree with Fergus Kerr that Method is seriously deficient in its treatment of the poetic but unlike the Republic, I believe that poets and dramatists will be welcomed in Lonergan’s theological democracy’ (New Blackfriars, August 1977, p. 367). Mathews lets the matter rest there, but I should like to take up and elaborate his suggestion (or what I take to be his suggestion) that Lonergan’s basic cognitional theory, or transcendental method, can be shown capable of integration with the nature and function of literary language, for it is surely a sound test of any account of how language functions that it can explain how and why poetry affects us as it does.