Table Of ContentSIX MODERN AUTHORS AND PROBLEMS OF BELIEF
By the same author
The Transformation ofSin: Studies in Donne, Herbert, Vaughan and
Traheme
Images and Ideas in Literature of the English Renaissance
Six Modern Authors
and Problems of Belief
PATRICK GRANT
Associate Professor of English
University of Victoria, British Columbia
© Patrick Grant 1979
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1979 978-0-333-26340-2
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
without permission
First published 1979 by
THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTO
London and Basingstoke
Associated companies in Delhi
Dublin Hong Kong johannesburg Lagos
Melbourne New York Singapore Tokyo
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Grant, Patrick
Six modern authors and problems of belief
1. Religion in literature 2. English literature -
20th century - History and criticism
I. Title
820' 4 3 PR479.R4
ISBN 978-1-349-04617-1 ISBN 978-1-349-04615-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-04615-7
This book is sold subject
to the standard conditions
of the Net Book Agreement
For
M. John Francis
Insofar as we think as strictly human beings,
we fail to understand what is below us no
less than what is above.
Peter Boone in Aldous Huxley's
After Many a Summer Dies the Swan
Et s'envire en chantant du chemin de Ia croix.
Baudelaire
Contents
Preface IX
I Introduction: new science and the autonomy of signs
I. Modem reflections on an earlier revolution
II. The image of the cross 5
III. Reconnaissance I4
2 Belief in Mysticism: Aldous Huxley, from Grey Eminence
to Island I7
I. Introduction: science, mysticism and the literary
man I7
II. Grey Eminence: the way of transcendence and the
way of history I 8
III. The spiritual flaw: the cross and the new materialism 23
IV. Island: Utopia and the essential horror 3 I
3 Belief in Anarchy: Robert Graves as mythographer 40
I. Mythography in the modem age 40
II. Robert Graves and Old Europe 43
III. King jesus and The Man Who Died 53
IV. Theory and practice 59
4 Belief in Religion: the poetry of David Jones 67
I. Jones and Joyce: language and the varieties ofr ealism 67
II. Poetry and the sign of the cross 7 I
III. The Anathemata 76
IV. David Jones and William Empson: science, poetry,
and the personal idiom 8 3
5 Belief in Fantasy: J. R. R. Tolkien's
Lord of the Rings 9 3
I. Lewis Carroll and Mother Goose 9 3
II. The context in history 98
vii
Vlll CONTENTS
III. Rudyard Kipling: Mowgli's choice of worlds IOO
IV. J. R. R. Tolkien: archetype and artifact I05
6 Belief in Thinking: Owen Barfield and
Michael Polanyi I2I
I. Owen Barfield I 2 I
II. The quality of idealism I 2 5
III. The cross as polarity I 29
IV. Michael Polan yi I 3 2
V. The quality of empiricism I 3 7
VI. The cross as commitment I 42
VII. Conclusion I43
7 Conclusion: typology and a critic's choice I45
Notes I 53
Index I7I
Preface
With the rise of science in the Renaissance, a crisis occurred for the
literary imagination. My discussion centres on six modern authors
who are explicitly concerned with this fact, and with relationships
between language and reality affected by it. In a modern world where
empirical philosophy promotes scientific progress while discrediting
the literary imagination as a valid mediator between nature and God,
these authors focus also on the symbol of the cross to make their
statements about the uses of imaginative language. They suggest that
literature concerned with theology in such circumstances can most
effectively present the problem of belief itself.
My focus lies within the twofold arbitrariness of a historical claim
and a selection of authors, but I have tried not to diminish the case by
defining it too sharply. On the historical side I encourage the reader to
look at a study of mine, Images and Ideas in Literature of the English
Renaissance (London: Macmillan, 1979), which deals with the impact
of empirical philosophy on literary imagery during the seventeenth
century. That book offers a fuller discussion of positions I treat
summarily in this one. On the critical side, I introduce to the main
discussion figures such as Greene, Lawrence, Joyce, Carroll, Kipling
and William Empson, sometimes to make a counter-case and clarify
the central point, but also to suggest alternative directions which the
argument could take. About each of my main authors- Huxley,
Graves, Jones, Tolkien, Barfield and Polanyi-I attempt to say
something new, and questions raised by my selection prompt an
assessment of the critic's place in making the interconnections
between literature, science and theology which the book discusses.
I acknowledge with gratitude the help of Charles Doyle, Laurence
Lerner and Tony Nuttall, who read the manuscript and made
numerous suggestions. I thank also Owen Barfield, William Blissett,
Rene Hague and Henry Summerfield for their generosity and advice,
and I extend special thanks to David Jeffrey, without whose
encouragement the project would have faltered. I acknowledge with
gratitude and respect the Izaac Walton Killam Trust and the Canada
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