Auden's O

Andrew W. Hass is Reader in Critical Religion at the University of Stirling in Scotland. He is the author of Poetics of Critique: The Interdisciplinarity of Textuality and the coeditor (with David Jasper and Elisabeth Jay) of The Oxford Handbook of English Literature and Theology.

• AcknowledgmentsEpicycle"Nothing will come of nothing"FalsettoAuden's Circumlocution0. IntroductionGiotto's OThe BinaryThe Binary CodeThe Binary Code CrackedThe ParadigmThe Paradigm ShiftThe Paradigm RiftThe ModernThe Modern CrisisPart One: From Religion and Philosophy to Artiface 1.  The Sovereignty of OneOne's Punch LineFrom the Many, One: The HebrewsThe Nature of One: The PresocraticsThe Metaphysics of One: Plato, AristotleThe Wholly, Plenary One: PlotinusThe Christian One: PaulThe Paradigms of OneOne's Retreat2. The Revolutions of OThe Romeo EffectZero and its HistoryGround ZeroMirror/Speculum/EyeThe Artificer's CircleThe Hermeneutical CircleI The Author's OEternal RecurrencePart Two: Poesis' Figure — The Making of O 3. Shakespeare's Eye of the StormLear's Tragic OShakespeare's Specular OCaliban's Negating O4. Reflections of AudenW. H. AudenThe Sea and the Mirror5. The Empty MiddleOriginating O (Blanchot)Historicizing OAlternate Os of the MiddleThe O of AudenThe Erotics of OSimone de BeauvoirPart III: Looking After O 6. The Remaking of Philosophy and ReligionPhilosophy and Religion: Inside the PerimeterNegation's Triumvirate: Hegel, Nietzsche, HeideggerBefore the Postmodern: SartreThrough the Postmodern: Derrida, IrigarayOut of the Postmodern: BadiougOd—Postmortem Theology7. The Future of O?Auden's BrechtThe Parabolic WithinPontius Pilate in the CreedThe Other RogueThe Rogue WithinAnother EpicycleThe Truest O is the Most Feigning"Signifying Nothing"NotesBibliography of Cited WorksIndex

"The core of the book is Hass on The Tempest and, especially, on Auden's relaunching of it in The Sea and the Mirror. Any admirer of Auden's long poem … will find much nourishment here, from comments on individual lyrics to reflections on the achievement of the whole." — Literature and Theology