Attunements to grace in the writings of Virginia Woolf and Marilynne Robinson

Thesis

Short Abstract: This thesis addresses how God’s grace – i.e., abiding presence to and action in creation – can be found operating in the writer, the writing, and the reader of fiction. In my introductory chapter, I propose that great literature, even self-consciously non-religious literature, can serve as a propaedeutic to religious attention, attuning the reader of words to God’s gracious presence in and through creation (the Incarnate Word). I assess this proposal by looking at the fic...

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Authors: Simmons, JE

• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: Catholic imagination; reductio; Bonaventure; Edmund Husserl; Marilynne Robinson; theology and literature; intentionality; Karl Rahner; Graham Ward; Gadamer; Nicholas of Cusa; William Lynch; Virginia Woolf; Gestimmtheit; Augustine; phenomenology of literature; Roland Barthes
• Subjects: Phenomenology and literature; Hermeneutics--Religious aspects--Christianity; Intentionality (Philosophy); Theology and Literature; Literature; Grace (Aesthetics) in literature