Poetry and Apocalypse: Theological Disclosures of Poetic Language (Cultural Memory in the Present) PDF
Preview Poetry and Apocalypse: Theological Disclosures of Poetic Language (Cultural Memory in the Present)
POETRY AND APOCALYPSE POETRY AND APOCALYPSE Theological Disclosures ofP oetic Language William Franke STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS STANFORD, CALIFORNIA 2009 Stanford Universiry Press Stanford, California © 2009 by the Board ofTrtlstees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved. Funding for this publication was generously provided by rhe Vanderbilt University Research Scholar Grant Program. No parr of this book may be reproduced or rransmirrcd in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording. or in any information storage or retrieval system without the prior wriucn permission of Sranford Universiry Pre.IOS. Primcd in thc Unitcd Stares of America on a,id~frcc, archiva,l-<lualiry paper Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Franke, \X/illiam. Poetry and apocalypse: theological disclosures of poetic language I \XliUiam Franke. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8047-5910-6 (cloth : aIk. paper) I. Apocalyptic lircrature-Hiscory and criticism. 2. Christian poetry History and criticism. 3. Epic poetry-History and criticism. 4. Christianiry and litcr.tturc-History. 5. Negative theology-Christianity. 1. Tide. BS646.F73 2009 809·1'93827-<:1C2.2 2008006688 Contents Preface IX Acknowledgrnents XU-I PART I I. Apocalypse and the Breaking-Open of Dialogue: A Critical Negarive Theology of Poetic Language 3 I. Being at the Mercy of Others 3 II. Apocalyptic Genres in Biblical Tradition 8 III. Literary Apocalypses IV. An Apocalyptic Theology of Dialogue v. Negative Capabilities for Peace [lART 2 II. Linguistic Repetition as Theological Revelation in Christian Epic Tradition from Dante to Joyce 97 III. Typological Re-origination and the Theological Vocation of Poetry; or, How to Read Finnegam Wake as the Culmination ofChrisrian Epic 125 1V . On the Possibility of a Poetics of Revelation Today: From Apocalyptic Theology to Postmodern Negative Theology 159 Post-apocalypse 203 Index 207 To Xinyi “New One” For new inspirations and revelations Preface the essays in this volume are literary-critical in nature and at the same time ventures in speculative philosophy and theology. they propose a model for reading literature theologically, even as they illustrate a meth- od for thinking through fundamental problems of theology in specifically literary terms. they constitute a quest for poetic and religious vision grant- ed each in and through the other. Understanding language and its life as metaphor proves to be crucial to this endeavor. although the path opened owes no specific allegiances to schools or movements, retrospectively it seems accurate to characterize the viewpoint that emerges as a postmodern negative theology of poetic language. this perspective is presented as an al- ternative to the apocalyptic theology of thomas J. J. altizer, since altizer’s work similarly, but differently, apprehends genuinely epoch-making theol- ogy in works of literary and linguistic imagination. this positioning of the work finds its way to explicit articulation in the last of the four essays. these discussions of poetry and apocalypse fit into a broader proj- ect of reading Western literature from within the horizon of a poetics of revelation. concertedly, they treat literature (in certain of its most potent instantiations) as religious revelation. But at the limit of apocalypse both terms of the equivalence lose their identity: revelation is no longer revela- tion, just as literature can no longer be literature. the mediation of the letter no longer has any place in the face of the immediate presence of apocalypse, and neither can anything be revealed any more, especially not in the literal sense of “re-velation,” or re-veiling, when all veils have been stripped clean away by apocalypse. It is the region in between poetry and apocalypse that stimulates the sort of thinking that these essays embody and explore. the sequence of essays follows the mutual co-implication of literature and theology as modes of representation that parallel and con-
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