Innocence Uncovered Literary and theological perspectives

216 Pages·2017·1.369 MB·English

by  Elizabeth S. Dodd, Carl E. Findley III (eds.)

“What, then, is innocence?” The question echoes that of Augustine on time, and
there are no quick and easy answers. Yet the essays in this book, as an exem-
plary exercise in the interdisciplinary study of literature and religion, offer a rich
and challenging response to that question. Beginning with the Bible, they engage
with the problem of innocence though a range of literary texts that recover or
explore the scriptural and historical roots of the idea of innocence that are too
often forgotten in Christian theology. Rooted in these literary texts the book is
aglow with theological and imaginative insights.
David Jasper, Professor of Literature and Theology, University of Glasgow
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Innocence Uncovered
Innocence is a rich and emotive idea, but what does it really mean? This
is a significant question both for literary interpretation and theology – yet
one without a straightforward answer. This volume provides a critical over-
view of key issues and historical developments in the concept of innocence,
delving into its ambivalences and exploring the many transformations of
innocence within literature and theology. The contributions in this volume,
by leading scholars in their respective fields, provide a range of responses
to this critical question. They address literary and theological treatments
of innocence from the birth of modernity to the present day. They discuss
major symbols and themes surrounding innocence, including purity and
sexuality, childhood and inexperience, nostalgia and utopianism, morality
and virtue. This interdisciplinary collection explores the many sides of inno-
cence, from aesthetics to ethics, from semantics to metaphysics, examining
the significance of innocence as both a concept and a word. The contribu-
tions reveal how innocence has progressed through centuries of dramatic
alterations, secularizations and subversions, while retaining an enduring
relevance as a key concept in human thought, experience, and imagination.
Elizabeth S. Dodd completed her doctorate on Thomas Traherne’s poetics of
innocence at Cambridge University, under the supervision of Professor David
Ford, and published it as Boundless Innocence in Thomas Traherne’s Poetic
Theology (2015), along with a collection of essays on Thomas Traherne and
Seventeenth-Century Thought with Cassandra Gorman (2016). Her research
interests lie in the area of theological aesthetics, and she is currently working
on a monograph on the lyric voice in English theology. She lectures in theology,
imagination and culture and in the ministry programmes at Sarum College in
Salisbury and is programme leader for the ministry MA.
Carl E. Findley III received his Ph.D. from the John U. Nef Committee on Social
Thought at the University of Chicago. His research and publications (includ-
ing works on Robert Musil, Dostoevsky, and Schiller) explore the labile bor-
ders that ideas traverse, probing diverse literary traditions and the translation
of theoretical forms into avant-garde literary practices. Findley’s work inter-
rogates the relationship between ideas and bodies, and the aesthetic and ethical
possibilities from the collapse of intellectual praxis, religious paradigms, and
gendered realities in 19th- and 20th-century Austrian, German, Russian, and
American novels. He is currently Lecturer of Liberal Arts at Mercer University
in Macon, Georgia.
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Innocence Uncovered
Literary and theological perspectives
Edited by Elizabeth S. Dodd
and Carl E. Findley III
First published 2017
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa
business
© 2017 selection and editorial matter, Elizabeth S. Dodd and Carl E.
Findley III; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of the editors to be identified as the authors of the editorial
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Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Dodd, Elizabeth S., editor.
Title: Innocence uncovered : literary and theological perspectives /
edited by Elizabeth S. Dodd and Carl E. Findley III.
Description: 1 [edition]. | New York : Routledge, 2016. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016023491 | ISBN 9781472489692 (hardback :
alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Innocence (Theology) | Innocence (Psychology)
in literature.
Classification: LCC BV4647.I5 I56 2016 | DDC 233—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016023491
ISBN: 978-1-472-48969-2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-44256-3 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents
Preface ix
ELIZABETH S. DODD
Introduction 1
CARL E. FINDLEY III
1 Affirmation and negation: The semantic paradox
at the heart of innocence 21
ELIZABETH S. DODD
2 The innocence of George MacDonald 41
JOHN R. DE JONG
3 The seduction of innocence: Erotic aesthetics from
Kierkegaard to decadentism 58
MICHAEL SUBIALKA
4 The repentance of language: Geoffrey Hill, Gerard
Manley Hopkins, and poetic integrity 76
DEVON ABTS
5 Imaginative innocence and conscious utopia in
Robert Musil’s The Man Without Qualities 96
CARL E. FINDLEY III
6 The innocences of revolution: Failed utopias and
nostalgic longings in Evgenii Zamyatin’s We and
Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Heart of a Dog 114
CHRISTOPHER CARR
viii Contents
7 A.I. – Artificial intelligence: Genealogies of
the posthuman child 132
ROBERT A. DAVIS
8 Can there be innocence after failure? 147
BEN QUASH
9 Moral innocence as the negative counterpart
to moral maturity 167
ZACHARY J. GOLDBERG
Afterword 183
ELIZABETH S. DODD AND CARL E. FINDLEY III
Contributors 185
Index 189
Preface
Elizabeth S. Dodd
Introduction
Innocence is a term that is used in a wide variety of contexts: literary, philo-
sophical, theological, ethical, psychological and judicial. An emotive idea
in contemporary art, literature and music, innocence is a term that is often
used uncritically and is rarely precisely defined. Is it a form of ignorance,
a result of inexperience, a kind of holiness, a natural state of being? Is it a
source of strength or of vulnerability? Is it an abstract ideal or a universal
attribute? In many of the contexts in which it is used, innocence is a subject
of controversy. This includes debates surrounding representations of child-
hood and its sexualisation.1 It includes the problematisation of claims to
innocence within the context of oppressive relationships, particularly from a
post-colonial or post-patriarchal perspective.2 It also includes disputes over
the nature, extent and provability of legal ‘innocence’.3 Given the urgency of
some of these questions, innocence is and will remain an important subject
of study.
This volume cannot provide a comprehensive or final answer to all of
these debates, but aims to open up key themes and questions raised by the
interplay between literature and theology. These two fields have had a sig-
nificant impact upon each other in the interpretation of innocence. Modern
literary treatments of innocence remain heavily indebted to a long Christian
tradition of which they are often unaware, while the place of innocence in
theology owes much to imaginative interpretations of Judaeo-Christian nar-
ratives of Eden, Abraham, David, Job, Mary, the infant Christ and gospel
parables and teachings, among others. The intersections between literature
and theology provide a fertile ground for this study, combining as they do
questions of sense and meaning with questions of style and aesthetics. The
contributions to this collection demonstrate that in investigating innocence
one is exploring the history of both a concept and a word.
This book uncovers new perspectives on innocence in literature and theol-
ogy, fills in gaps in understandings of its development and its diversity, and
provokes questions to encourage further study in this area. The Introduc-
tion traces the often forgotten scriptural and historical roots of the Latin
tradition of innocence in Christian theology and literature, focussing on the