The Hermeneutics of Hell : Visions and Representations of the Devil in World Literature

328 Pages·2017·3.91 MB·English

by  Gregor Thuswaldner

The
Hermeneutics
of
Visions and Representations
of the Devil
in World Literature
Hell
Edited by Gregor Thuswaldner
and Daniel Russ
The Hermeneutics of Hell
Gregor Thuswaldner · Daniel Russ
Editors
The Hermeneutics
of Hell
Visions and Representations of the Devil
in World Literature
Editors
Gregor Thuswaldner Daniel Russ
College of Arts and Sciences Gordon College
North Park University Wenham, MA, USA
Chicago, IL, USA
ISBN 978-3-319-52197-8 ISBN 978-3-319-52198-5 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-52198-5
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017939075
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017
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C
ontents
1 Introduction: The Devil We Know and the Devils We
Don’t Know 1
Daniel Russ and Gregor Thuswaldner
2 “Two Brass Mites of the Widow”: Saint Bridget of
Sweden and the Terrors of Hell 9
Mark Edwin Peterson
3 The Uses of Tentatio: Satan, Luther, and Theological
Maturation 27
Carl P.E. Springer
4 As an Angel of Light: Satanic Rhetoric in Early Modern
Literature and Theology 47
David Parry
5 Astrophal Redivivus: The Coinage of the Discourse on
the Devil in the Early Modern Age in Georg Bernardt
S.J.’s Tundalus Redivivus (1622) 73
David Johannes Olszynski
v
vi CONTENTS
6 The Drama of Hell: Sources and Interpretation in
Seventeenth-Century Operatic Infernal Scenes 93
Aliyah M. Shanti
7 The Diabolic Logic of Logos: Towards a Hermeneutics of
Hell in Goethe’s Faust 115
Caroline Sauter
8 Literature, Theology, Survival 143
S.Jonathon O’Donnell
9 Dostoevsky’s Demons 165
Irina Kuznetsova
10 Money as the Devil in B. Traven’s “Assembly Line,”
and Its Sources in Scripture, the Faust Legend,
and New England Puritanism 187
Anthony R. Grasso, C.S.C.
11 “la manière de Milton”: Baudelaire Reads Milton’s
Satan 211
Matthew J. Smith
12 Visions of Hell in Flannery O’Connor 239
George Piggford, C.S.C
13 “He Haunts One for Hours Afterwards”: Demonic
Dissonance in Milton’s Satan and Lovecraft’s
Nyarlathotep 253
Marcello Ricciardi
14 “The One Who Knocks”: Milton’s Lucifer and the
American Tragic Character 271
Edward Simon
CONTENTS vii
15 Reading the Devil in the Landscape 291
Deborah C. Bowen
16 A Landscape of the Damned: Evil and Nothingness in
Cormac McCarthy’s Outer Dark 305
Matthew Potts
Index 319
C
ontributors
Deborah C. Bowen Redeemer University College, Ancaster, Canada
Anthony R. Grasso C.S.C. King’s College, Wilkes-Barre, USA
Irina Kuznetsova New Economic School, Moscow, Russia
David Johannes Olszynski University of Koblenz-Landau, Koblenz,
Germany
S. Jonathon O’Donnell Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo, Japan
David Parry Christ’s College, University of Cambridge, Cambridge,
England
Mark Edwin Peterson Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum‚
Library & Research Center, Staunton, VA, USA
George Piggford C.S.C Stonehill College, Easton, USA
Matthew Potts Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
Marcello Ricciardi St. Joseph’s College, New York, USA
Daniel Russ Gordon College, Wenham, MA, USA
Caroline Sauter Goethe University Frankfurt, Department for General
and Comparative Literature, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Aliyah M. Shanti Princeton University, Princeton, USA
ix
x CONTRIBUTORS
Edward Simon The Marginalia Review of Books, Los Angeles, CA,
USA
Matthew J. Smith Azusa Pacific University, Azusa, CA, USA
Carl P. E. Springer University of Tennessee Chattanooga, Chattanooga,
USA
Gregor Thuswaldner College of Arts and Sciences, North Park
University, Chicago, IL, USA
L f
ist of igures
Fig. 6.1 Beginning of Orpheus’ aria “Possente spirto.” Trans.
“Powerful spirit, and formidable god.” 100
Fig. 6.2 Excerpt from ritornello and sinfonia from the end
of Act 3 of Jacopo Melani’s Ercole in Tebe 104
Fig. 6.3 Illustration of infernal scene, from Stefano Landi,
Il S. Alessio: Dramma Musicale (Rome: Appresso
Paolo Masotti, 1634) 107
Fig. 15.1 Evening lake-sky. “Witness to the
unpresentable” (original photograph by John Bowen,
summer July 2009. Reproduced with permission) 294
Fig. 15.2 The Russian steppes, “a landscape where the
supernatural [lies] just below the surface” 296
Fig. 15.3 The Devil’s Punch Bowl, Hamilton,
Ontario—the negative sublime 297
Fig. 15.4 The Badlands—garden or grave.
North Dakota Badlands 299
Fig. 15.5 Jonathan Day (jeighdeigh), “Bach In Heaven”
Reproduced with permission 302
xi