The Trivial Sublime: Theology and American Poetics

204 Pages·1992·18.351 MB·English

by  Linda Munk (auth.)

THE TRNIALSUBLIME
The Trivial Sublime
Theology and American Poetics
LindaMunk
AssistantProfessorofEnglish
UniversityofToronto
M
St. Martin's Press
©LindaMunk1992
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ThisbookispublishedinMacmillan'sStudiesinLiteratureandReligionseries.
GeneralEditor: DavidJasper
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ISBN978-1-349-22577-4 ISBN 978-1-349-22575-0(eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-22575-0
FirstpublishedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica1992by
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ISBN978-0-312-08561-2
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Munk,Linda.
Thetrivialsublime:theologyandAmericanpoetics/ LindaMunk.
p. cm,
Includesindex.
ISBN978-0-312-08561-2
1.Religiouspoetry,American-Historyandcriticism. 2.Sublime,
The,inliterature. 3.Theologyinliterature. 4.God in
literature. 5.Poetics. I.Title.
PS310.R4M86
811.009'382-dc20 92-19511
CIP
Contents
Acknowledgments vi
General Editor's Prefaceby David Jasper vii
TheTrivial Sublime / Ex-tracts 1
1 Emerson: This Almost InsignificantSignifier 22
2 InNomine Diaboli: An Extreme Interpretation
of BillyBudd 40
3 Giving Umbrage: The Songof Songs
whichisWhitman's 60
4 Recycling Language: Emily Dickinson's
Religious Wordplay 83
5 Robert Frost: The Design ofViolence 107
6 Understanding Understatement: Biblical
Typologyand "The Displaced Person" 119
7 His Dazzling Absence:The Shekinahin
Jonathan Edwards 136
Notes 163
Index 192
v
Acknowledgments
I am indebted to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research
Council of Canada for generous funding; to St. Chad's College,
UniversityofDurham, forelectingme to the Macmillan Fellowship
in 1989-90; and to David Jasper, the director of the Centre for the
StudyofLiteratureand Theologyat the UniversityofGlasgow.Two
scholars havebeen unsparingwiththeir learning:EleanorCookand
Robert Hayward. Charles Lockhas not only sharedhis unbounded
scholarship,buthas been the most scrupulous ofreaders.
Chapters ofthis workincorporateor adapt material from essays
that have previously been published: "Recycling Language: Emily
Dickinson's Religious Wordplay," in Emerson Society Quarterly: A
JournaloftheAmericanRenaissance;"UnderstandingUnderstatement:
Biblical Typology and 'The Displaced Person,'" in Literature and
Theology; "TheDesign ofViolence,"in Literatureand Theology; "His
Dazzling Absence: Jonathan Edwards and the Shekinah," in Early
American Literature.
vi
General Editor Preface
IS
To be fascinated by theology is to be fascinated by words. The
theologian works through and beyond language. The same is true
ofthepoet,andbothpoetandtheologianmusttrackwordspatiently
and exactly in both meaningand mystery.
ForRalph Waldo Emerson, as Linda Munkcomments, the words
of God are never fixed or even consistent, yet these fugitives are
infinitely precious and endlessly demanding. In these chapters on
American literature, Munk relentessly pursues the language of
religion from its biblical roots in the[udaeo-Christian traditionand
through the poetics of modem literature. The result is a remark
able and demanding book, its themes spreading into numerous
areas of the relationship between literature and theology, into our
postmodernworld,and across a spectrum oftheological issues.
The study of detail can become a journey into the trivial, yet
apparent trivia may also open windows upon matters of crucial,
even sublime importance. It is easy for language, and particularly
religious language,tobecomeembedded inthenormsofcustomary
use, until, "words are revived by a new relation between words".
Poets, like Emily Dickinson or Robert Frost, release worlds which
were indangerofbecomingsterile and return them to thecomplex,
often violent, beautiful realms ofwhat Emerson calls the "common
every day". Theology and its forms must then accept new respon
sibilities and become subject to the demands ofa new "literalism"
within the workingsof poetry.
Whitmanreturnsus tothebody; Frostremindsusofthedesignof
violence. The pun/ irony, plurisignificance - the infinite complexity
of language and the business of the poet takes us back to the
heart of theology and its ancient symbols. Mystery, not meaning:
a dazzling absence, not unwholesome presence - these are Linda
Munk's preoccupations in this remarkable, learned and unsettling
book.
David Jasper
GENERAL EDITOR
vii
And in this he shewyd me a lytiUe thynge, the quantyte of a
haselle nutte, lyggande in the palme of my hande, and to my
vndyrstandynge that/ it was as rownde as any balle. I lokede ther
opon and thought: Whate maye this be? And I was annswerde
generaly thus: It is aIle that ys made. I merveylede howe that it
myght laste, for me thought it myght falle sodaynIy to nought for
litille.
Julian ofNorwich
The Trivial Sublime /
Ex-tracts
"Thomas of Celano tells us that the saint picked up every piece
of parchment which he'found on the ground, even if it were
from a pagan book. Asked by a disciple why he did so, Francis
answered:'Fili mi, litteraesuntexquibuscomponiturgloriossimum
Dei nomen.
III
ErnstRobert Curtius
* * *
"Howweretheyto understandawriterwhosegreatestprideitwas
that'thewritingconsists largely ofquotations- the craziestmosaic
technique imaginable' - and who placed the greatest emphasis on
the six mottoes that preceded the study . .. ?"
Hannah Arendt,citingWalter Benjamin
* * *
"Can we rescue a word and discover a universe? Can we study
a language, and awake to the Truth? Can we bury ourselves in a
lexicon, and arise in the presenceof God?"
EdwynClementHoskyns
* * *
"Look at theological dictionary.1855.Walt Whitman."
Walt Whitman
* * *
"My personal way has been from the observed detail to ever
broadeningunitswhichrest, toanincreasingdegree,onspeculation.
Itis,Ithink, the philological, theinductiveway, whichseekstoshow
significance in the apparently futile, in contrast to the deductive
procedure which begins with units assumed as given . .. ."
LeoSpitzer
2 The Trivial Sublime/ Ex-tracts
* * *
"I fear chieflylest my expression may not be extra-vagant enough,
may not wander far enough beyond the narrow limits ofmy daily
experience, so as to be adequate to the truth ofwhich Ihave been
convinced."
Henry David Thoreau
* * *
"Inthe Talmud it isalways ofgreat importance tospecify,foreach
saying, who said it. A true teaching is one in which the universal
nature of the truth it announces does not obliterate the name or
the identity of the person who said it. TheTalmudic scholars even
believe that the Messiah will come at the moment when everyone
quotes what they have learned, in the name of the person they
learned it from."
Emmanuel Levinas
* * *
"One must be able to make use of the trivial for the expression of
the sublime."
Thomas Hardy, citing Havelock Ellis,
citingJeanFrancoisMillet
* * *
"Yetinhis [Whitman'sllater years particularly, he did think ofhis
work inrelation topainting. Hesaid that'theLeavesare reallyonly
Milletin anotherform.
Iff
F.().Matthiessen
* * *
"To me the converging objectsofthe universe perpetually flow
AIlare written to me, and Imust get what the writing means."
Walt Whitman