Catholic literature and secularisation in France and England, 1880-1914 / Brian Sudlow.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sudlow, Brian.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English literature--Catholic authors--History and criticism.

English literature.

English literature--Catholic authors.

French literature--Catholic authors--History and criticism.

French literature.

French literature--Catholic authors.

English literature--19th century--History and criticism.

English literature--20th century--History and criticism.

French literature--19th century--History and criticism.

French literature--20th century--History and criticism.

Catholic literature--History and criticism.

Catholic literature.

Secularism--Great Britain--History.

Secularism.

Secularism--France--History.

History.

France.

Great Britain.

Physical Description:

264 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Manchester ; New York : Manchester University Press ; New York : distributed in the United States exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.

Summary:

This book is the first comparative study of its kind to explore at length the French and English Catholic literary revivals of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These parallel but mostly independent movements included writers such as Charles Péguy, Paul Claudel, J. K. Huysmans, Gerard Manley Hopkins, G. K. Chesterton, and Lionel Johnson. Revising critical approaches which tend to treat Catholic writings as exotic marginalia, this book makes extensive use of secularisation theory to confront these Catholic writings with the preoccupations of secularism and modernity.

The book compares individual and societal secularisation in France and England and examines how French and English Catholic writers understood and contested secular mores, ideologies and praxes in the individual, societal and religious domains. It also addresses the extent to which some Catholic writers succumbed to the seduction of secular instincts, even paradoxically in themes which are considered to be emblematic of Catholic literature.

The breadth of this book will make it a useful guide for students wishing to become familiar with a wide range of such writings in France and England during this period. It will also appeal to researchers interested in Catholic literary and intellectual history in France and England, theologians, philosophers and students of the sociology of religion. Book jacket.

Contents:

Individual and societal secularisation in France and England

Recovering the porous individual

Thinking and believing

The fragments of secular society

Mending secular fragmentation

Ultimate societal values

Catholic religiosity and the hierarchical Church

Catholic religiosity and the charismatic Church.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [241]-257) and index.

ISBN:

9780719083112

0719083117

OCLC:

701811098

Publisher Number:

60001434552