848 Reviews to which I wish he had said more about its realism, and Lilith and Phantastes. Because the book traces the presence of folklore and folk tales in such literature, it is prevented from being as interesting as it could be about what is distinctive in this fiction: the account of Hogg's The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a JustifiedSinner being a casualty of this approach, so that the reader not knowing Hogg might not suspect what an extraordinary psychic analysis takes place within it and so might not even read it.The book does not set itself targetswhich are either exciting or challenging to itself, as here: 'The question remains: what are some of the ways in which nineteenth century British writers of the fantastic who use supernatural folklore represent "the marvellous within everyday life"?' (p. 101). The latter is, of course, a reference to 'magic realism'. This is hardly T. S. Eliot's 'overwhelming question'; nor ismore originality signalled by the declaration of intent, to show 'how the tension between folkmetaphysics and rationalism produces the literaryfantastic, and [todemonstrate how] narrative and ideological negotiation with folklorewas central to the canon, aswell as popular in themargins of British literature' (p. viii). There is little here to surprise, and the knowledge that such folklore is somewhere inmuch nineteenth-century writing demands, to justify furtherwork, more of a sense of how itmakes a difference. Alas, when it comes to justification, Harris rather flails out: 'through their attention to the supernatural folklore of rural regions in particular, Carleton and Sharp challenge the cultural dominance of English industrialism, the complacency of mundane rationality and the narrative totalitarianism of realism' (p. 165). The book isnice in having footnotes, not endnotes, and useful in suggesting that Scottmay have helped block the reception ofHoffmann in Britain (p. 38), so limiting the psychoanalytic power of his work, so influential on Freud's 'The Uncanny', a text needed on page 183. But refusal of Jack Zipes's Marxism means a serious downplaying of his work (p. 48) in favour ofmuch lesser secondary literature,while neglect of Freud means that Jacqueline Rose's decisive study The Case ofPeter Pan; or, The Impossibility ofChildren's Fiction (London: Macmillan, rev. edn 1994) gets a bare mention, and does notmake it to the index. University of Manchester Jeremy Tambling Ecstasy and Understanding: Religious Awareness in English Poetry from the Late Victorian to the Modern Period. Ed. byAdrian Gr?fe. London: Continuum. 2008. xi+183 pp. ?60. ISBN 978-0-8264-9864-9. No consistent party line can be expected from a volume of fourteen essays by different authors. Adrian Gr?fe, in his introduction, does, however, set his own agenda, ranking Geoffrey Hill along with Hopkins and Eliot as arguably the three greatest poets' of the period (p. 2). The notion thatHill's work is superior to that ofHardy, Housman, Owen, Auden, Larkin, or Plath will seem risible to those who clearly distinguish poetry from theology. Eliot held that the testof religious poetry is that it should excite and hold the interest of readers who are not religious. The MLR, 104.3, 2009 849 question haunting religious poetry isposed byDaniel Szabo, one of the contributors here, in relation to R. S. Thomas's prayers to a silent God: 'And yet who is really convinced? Is the poet himself convinced?' (p. 127). Grafe's own essay assumes that it is natural for art to embody theology. Simone Weil restsher religious belief neither on reason nor on any pre-established disposi tion or passion tobelieve, but ratheron aesthetic grounds'. The perfect beauty of the accounts of thePassion', she says, 'forces'her tobelieve inChristianity (p. 164). How convincing is this?Those brought up on theQuran know that the story ofChrist's incarnation, however beautiful, isblasphemous; while atheists will struggle to find 'beauty' in a God who requires a blood sacrifice for the 'sins' of those he has created. Some essays in thevolume followGr?fe in eliding poetry and Christian theology. Catherine Phillips argues that the borrowing of images fromHopkins by Geoffrey Hill, George Mackay Brown, and Edwin Muir ensures a continuity of 'religious sensibility'. Maureen Moran writes: 'Luxurious material artefacts and dramatic gestures are...