Play, Literature, Religion

Virgil Nemoianu is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the Catholic University of America. He is the author of A Theory of the Secondary; Literature, Progress and Reaction; and The Hospitable Canon, as well as coeditor of Essays on Literary Play, Scholarly Choice and Popular Pressures with Robert Royal. Robert Royal is Vice President for Research and John M. Olin Fellow in Religion and Society at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, DC. He is coeditor of A Century of Catholic Social Thought with George Weigel.

• 1. Literary Play and Religious ReferentialityVirgil Nemoianu 2. As It Is SaidJudah Goldin 3. The Mirth of God: An Essay on Biblical HumorArthur Quinn 4. Guilty Pleasure: The Comic, the Sacred, and Placer(es) in the Autos Sacramentales of Calderon de la BarcaBarbara E. Kurtz 5. Milton "Ridens": Reinventing the Temporality of Tradition and FaithSanford Budick 6. "The Laughter of Despair": Irony, Humor, and Laughter in Kierkegaard and CarlyleEric J. Ziolkowski 7. Max Jacob—Meditation as PlayMary Anne O'Neil 8. Hegelianism and Its Monsters: The Dynamics of Writing in Georges BatailleJean-Michel Heimonet 9. The Literary Value of Hope: Peguy's Porche du Mystere de la deuxieme vertuRobert Royal 10. The Theology of Mario Luzi's PoetryGiuseppe Mazzotta 11. Ritual: The Divine Play of TimeLouis Dupre Index

"I am 'bowled over' by the brilliant synthesizing essays by Nemoianu and Dupré, which tie together large, important realms of contemporary theory and cultural history; and by the verve with which the other contributors relate major subjects and authors to the core or nexus: the 'play concept.' The book breaks open into exciting new territory and pulls together a host of inherited forces, contemporary impulses, and deeper trends. While cutting across facets of European civilizations, the authors suggest innumerable points of linkage for experts who are concerned with other great civilizations."The idea of divine 'play' is an element that recurs with bursts of creative energy over the centuries in several civilizations. By concentrating on Western modes, the book succeeds in suggesting leads for inter-civilizational comparisons without losing coherence. It offers the indispensable historical depth for dealing with the topic, but half its chapters expand in detail upon major figures and relationships in the modern period. It is central to a grasp of modernism." — Gerald Gillespie, Stanford University