The essays in this volume explore the persistent struggle of language to overcome its own limitations. Given their scope-from Dante's confrontation with the divine All to Samuel Beckett's obsessive need to speak in the face of Nothing-they expand our notion of the extent to which all speech is an assault on silence, an attempt to articulate what lies beyond the grasp of words. The collection offers the reader, in roughly chronological order, diverse conceptions of the ineffable as either superfluity or absence of reality. It also exposes language in the act of extending its own boundaries, drawing attention to those literary tactics by which speech attempts to suggest what cannot be said. While largely a study of poetry, from medieval to modern, the volume also touches upon drama and a variety of prose, combining close textual readings with broader thematic discussions.

Ineffability: Naming the Unnamable from Dante to Beckett

Hawkins, Peter S.

Reference

Ams Pr Inc

Dante’s Testaments: Essays in Scriptural Imagination (Figurae: Reading Medieval Culture)

This book explores the wide range of Dante's reading and the extent to which he transformed what he read, whether in the biblical canon, in the ancient Latin poets, in such Christian authorities as Augustine or Benedict, or in the "book of the world"―the globe traversed by pilgrims and navigators. The author argues that the exceptional independence and strength of Dante's forceful stance vis-à-vis other authors, amply on display in both the Commedia and so-called minor works, is informed by a deep knowledge of the Christian Scriptures. The Bible in question is not only the canonical text and its authoritative commentaries but also the Bible as experienced in sermon and liturgy, hymn and song, fresco and illumination, or even in the aphorisms of everyday speech. The Commedia took shape against the panorama of this divine narrative. In chapters devoted to Virgil and Ovid, the author explores strategies of allusion and citation, showing how Dante reinterprets these authors in the light of biblical revelation, correcting their vision and reorienting their understanding of history or human love. Dante finds his authority for making these interpretive moves in a "scriptural self" that is constructed over the course of the Commedia. That biblical selfhood enables him to choose among various classical and Christian traditions, to manipulate arguments and time lines, and to forge imaginary links between the ancient world and his own "modern uso." He rewrites Scripture by reactivating it, by writing it again. To the inspired parchments of the Old and New Testaments he boldly adds his own "testamental" postscript.

Literature & Fiction

History & Criticism

Stanford University Press

Getting Nowhere: Christian Hope & Utopian Dream

Religion & Spirituality

UNKNO

The Bible in the American Short Story (New Directions in Religion and Literature)

The Bible in the American Short Story examines Biblical influences in the post-World War II American short story. In a series of accessible chapters, Lesleigh Cushing Stahlberg and Peter S. Hawkins offer close-readings of short stories by leading contemporary writers such as Flannery O'Connor, Allegra Goodman, Tobias Wolff and Kirstin Valdez Quade that highlight the biblical passages that they reference. Exploring episodes from the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament and both Jewish and Christian heritages, this book is an important contribution to understanding the influence of the Bible in contemporary literature.

Cushing Stahlberg, Lesleigh

Bloomsbury Academic

For over seven centuries, Dante and his masterpiece, The Divine Comedy, have held a special place in Western culture. The poem is at once a vivid journey through hell to heaven, a poignant love story, and a picture of humanity’s relationship to God. It is so richly imaginative that a first reading can be bewildering. In response, Peter Hawkins has written an inspiring introduction to the poet, his greatest work, and its abiding influence. His knowledge of Dante and enthusiasm for his vision make him an expert guide for the willing reader.

Dante: A Brief History

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

Wiley/Blackwell

The Bible in the American Short Story examines Biblical influences in the post-World War II American short story. In a series of accessible chapters, Lesleigh Cushing Stahlberg and Peter S. Hawkins offer close-readings of short stories by leading contemporary writers such as Flannery O’Connor, Allegra Goodman, Tobias Wolff and Kirstin Valdez Quade that highlight the biblical passages that they reference. Exploring episodes from the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament and both Jewish and Christian heritages, this book is an important contribution to understanding the influence of the Bible in contemporary literature.

Through an insightful, literary treatment of various utopian visions, Peter Hawkins examines the human urge for widespread happiness, while pondering our consistent failure to produce it. Hawkins draws from biblical notions of paradise, Plato's Republic, More's Utopia, Bellamy, Orwell, Le Corbusier, B. F. Skinner, and Walker Percy, locating in each the usefulness and accountability of the Utopian impulse.

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Wipf and Stock

Why do most contemporary Christians pull a blank when it comes to imagining a life with God after death? Although the Bible is largely silent on the issue, our world is completely riveted by the up-to-date visions of heaven and hell that stock bookstore shelves and are found everywhere on the Internet. But what are believers to think and to say about the “undiscovered country” that is the life to come―from the pulpit, at the hospital, or in our daily lives? Peter Hawkins offers a fresh way to pose these questions, along with an imaginative framework for answering them. He challenges all of us, not just preachers, to think of Dante’s drama of the afterlife―heaven, hell and purgatory―as a true story describing the lives we are living now. To this end Hawkins uses the Divine Comedy to help us imagine what happens when we die as he works his way through Christian tradition, contemporary culture, a rich array of literature, and his own personal experience.

Undiscovered Country: Imagining the World to Come

Christian Books & Bibles

Seabury Books

Hawkins explores both traditional and contemporary ways grace has been handled in literature. The traditional representation of grace is explained using, among other things, the parables of Jesus. Then he turns to more contemporary literature, including O'Connor's A Good Man is Hard to Find, Percy's The Second Coming, and Murdoch's A Word Child. Through these novels and short stories, Hawkins highlights the impoverishment of spirit and imagination when religious language fails us. He presents three writers struggling to bridge the gap between ourselves and those mysterious realities we can no longer talk about.

The Language of Grace: Flannery O'Connor, Walker Percy, and Iris Murdoch (Seabury Classics)

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Hawkins, Peter S.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Hawkins, Peter S.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Hawkins, Peter S.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Ineffability: Naming the Unnamable from Dante to Beckett

Dante’s Testaments: Essays in Scriptural Imagination (Figurae: Reading Medieval Culture)

Dante’s Testaments: Essays in Scriptural Imagination (Figurae: Reading Medieval Culture)

Getting Nowhere: Christian Hope & Utopian Dream

The Bible in the American Short Story (New Directions in Religion and Literature)

Dante: A Brief History

The Bible in the American Short Story (New Directions in Religion and Literature)

Getting Nowhere: Christian Hope & Utopian Dream

Undiscovered Country: Imagining the World to Come

The Language of Grace: Flannery O'Connor, Walker Percy, and Iris Murdoch (Seabury Classics)