User:Sherrilledwards/sandbox: Difference between revisions

(5 intermediate revisions by the same user not shown)

Line 57:

as a statement on human destiny. Yes, there may be a rumor of grace

in the phrase, “many are strong at the broken places,” but the pervasive tone{{pg|336|337}} is bleak. There seems an ''absence'' of God-language, providence, any orderly universe. So, have we not left the Garden for the wasteland?

Indeed we have. But this diction is ''still'' theological language. Mankind’s estrangement from the Garden may be part of Modernism, but it is at the heart of the biblical story—and another element in ''disenchantment.'' In Genesis, we read that “the LORD God drove [Adam] out of the garden of Eden,"{{sfn|1970|p=Gen. 3.23}} that “Cain went out from the LORD’s presence,"{{sfn|1970|p=Gen. 4.16}} becoming a “vagrant and a wanderer on earth."{{sfn|1970|p=Gen. 4.12}} Here is ''alienation''—being a stranger, a fugitive. Linked with Hegel and early Marx, alienation has deep biblical roots. In God-language, all are sons of Adam and brothers to Cain.{{efn|“Alienation is the experience of being a stranger, ‘away from home,’ estranged from others and from oneself . . . Alienation is also a theme of the Scriptures as a whole. Adam’s eviction from Eden, Cain’s wandering as a fugitive, Israel’s servitude in Egypt and later exile in Babylon. All symbolize an alienation that is the lot of mankind. . . . from the 1940s, the word was used increasingly to describe social and cultural estrangement. Influences include the vast disorientation caused by World War II, and the writings of Weber, Kierkegaard, and Tillich. A major source was the newly discovered Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of Marx. . . . Alienation, an important concept in social psychology, has its roots in a basic theological reality: that mankind is alienated from God, his fellows, and himself."{{sfn|Vince|1988|p=15}}}} Here, the rhetoric of modernism and Genesis intersect: Garden and wasteland belong ''both'' to a biblical vocabulary and ''also to'' the vocabulary of modernity.

Among Hemingway’s short stories from the 1930s, we have a profound existential parable, “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place.” In the café, old man and waiters stave off life’s ''nada'' experience. In his own, each character faces his ''nada'' or emptiness, seen in other Hemingway stories from the period.{{efn|“Nowhere is this ''nada'' (the void, emptiness, meaninglessness) more insistent than in Hemingway’s two African stories, ‘The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber’ and ‘The Snows of Kilimanjaro.’” {{sfn|Stolzfus|2005|p=206}}}} The story echoes Jesus’ Parable of the Prodigal Son—and Cain’s angry question to God.{{efn|The Parable begins, “There was once a man who had two sons . . .”{{sfn|1970|p=Luke 15.11}} Both stories have simplicity and profundity. Both seem answers to Cain’s question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”{{sfn|1970|p=Gen. 4.9}} Both have strong Existentialist perspectives. “The parable, then, is a microcosm of the human situation . . . a picture of man’s alienation from his essential self, from the world, and from society, and is a crystallization of our human condition.”{{sfn|Jones|1964|p=184}}}} The “clean, well-lighted place” seems a poignant ''synecdoche'' for the Garden, representing the search for a lost home, the quest for order. By story’s end, the older waiter better understands the old man’s despair, answering positively Cain’s ancient question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”{{sfn|1970|p=Gen. 4.9}} Yet, the waiter ''demythologizes'' the Lord’s Prayer and the Hail Mary, central to the God-language of Catholicism.{{efn|In a 1941 essay, “New Testament and Mythology,” Rudolf Bultmann (1884–1976) introduced ''demythologizing,'' influential in the post-war theology.{{sfn|Brown|1969|p=187}}}} Surely, this representation is the ''absence'' of God-language? After all, absence is said to be characteristic of modernism—we think of Hemingway’s iceberg motif. The waiter has replaced ''grace''—and every other theologically significant word—with ''nada,'' nothingness, emptiness. God is dead. Grace has left the building. Nihilism rules.

Yet, two points may be made. First, the Judeo-Christian tradition yields many parallels to the ''nada'' experience: the reflections of Job; the Suffering Servant in Isaiah 53; the ocean as symbol of chaos, “the dark night of the soul” from the Spanish mystic, St. John of the Cross; the ''via negativa'' of medieval theology; the abandonment of Christ on the Cross; creation as the transforming of an earth “without form and void."{{sfn|1970|p=Gen. 1.1–2}} Before Hemingway’s epigraph from Ecclesiastes, we read, “Emptiness, emptiness, says the Speaker, emptiness, all is empty."{{sfn|1970|p=Ecc. 1.2}} Much of modern{{pg|337|338}} theology has a strong existentialist flavor.{{efn|Shaped by Heidegger, Sartre and post-war anomie, Existentialism has earlier sources in the Christian philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard, and is seen in theologians Karl Barth, Reinhold Niebuhr, Paul Tillich, and Rudolf Bultmann. On American Existentialism, Adamowski{{sfn|Adamowski|2005}} is crucial.}} Yes, two different “language games” are being played here, but they are not necessarily incompatible with one another.

=== Notes ===

Line 103:

Line 109:

* {{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |date=1926 |title=The Sun Also Rises |location=New York |publisher=Scribner, 2006 |ref=harv }}

* {{cite book |last=Jones |first=Geraint Vaughan |date=1964 |title=The Art and Truth of the Parables: A Study in Their Literary Form and Modern Interpretation |location=London |publisher=S.P.C.K |ref=harv }}

* {{cite book |last=Jung |first=Carl |date=1955 |title=Man in Search of a Soul |location=New York |publisher=Harcourt |ref=harv }}

Line 121:

Line 129:

* {{cite book |last=Marx |first=Karl |date=1975 |title=''A Contribution of the Critique of Hegel's'' Philosophy of Right. ''Introduction.'' |journal=Early Writings |location=Ed. Lucio Colletti. London |publisher=Penguin |pages=243-258 |ref=harv }}

* {{cite book |title=New English Bible, The [NEB] |location=Ed. Samuel Sandmel. Oxford Study Edition. New York |publisher= Oxford University Press, 1970 |ref=harv }}

* {{cite book |title=The 1928 Book of Common Prayer |location=New York |publisher= Oxford University Press, 1993 |ref=harv }}

Line 135:

Line 145:

* {{cite journal |last=Stoneback |first=H.R. |title=Pilgrimage Variations: Hemingway's Sacred Landscapes |journal=Religion and Literature |volume=35.2/3 |issue= |date=2003 |pages=49-65 |ref=harv }}

* {{cite journal |last=Vince |first=Raymond M. |title=Alienation |journal=New Dictionary of Theology |location= Ed. Sinclair B. Ferguson, David F. Wright, and J.I. Packer. Downers Grove, IL |publisher=Inter-Varsity Press, 1988 |ref=harv }}

* {{cite journal |last=Wagner-Martin |first=Linda |date=1987|title=Introduction |journal= New Essays on The Sun Also Rises |location= Cambridge|publisher=Cambridge University Press |ref=harv }}

@@ Line 57: / Line 57: @@
 as a statement on human destiny. Yes, there may be a rumor of grace
 in the phrase, “many are strong at the broken places,” but the pervasive tone{{pg|336|337}} is bleak. There seems an ''absence'' of God-language, providence, any orderly universe. So, have we not left the Garden for the wasteland?
+Indeed we have. But this diction is ''still'' theological language. Mankind’s estrangement from the Garden may be part of Modernism, but it is at the heart of the biblical story—and another element in ''disenchantment.'' In Genesis, we read that “the LORD God drove [Adam] out of the garden of Eden,"{{sfn|1970|p=Gen. 3.23}} that “Cain went out from the LORD’s presence,"{{sfn|1970|p=Gen. 4.16}} becoming a “vagrant and a wanderer on earth."{{sfn|1970|p=Gen. 4.12}} Here is ''alienation''—being a stranger, a fugitive. Linked with Hegel and early Marx, alienation has deep biblical roots. In God-language, all are sons of Adam and brothers to Cain.{{efn|“Alienation is the experience of being a stranger, ‘away from home,’ estranged from others and from oneself . . . Alienation is also a theme of the Scriptures as a whole. Adam’s eviction from Eden, Cain’s wandering as a fugitive, Israel’s servitude in Egypt and later exile in Babylon. All symbolize an alienation that is the lot of mankind. . . . from the 1940s, the word was used increasingly to describe social and cultural estrangement. Influences include the vast disorientation caused by World War II, and the writings of Weber, Kierkegaard, and Tillich. A major source was the newly discovered Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of Marx. . . . Alienation, an important concept in social psychology, has its roots in a basic theological reality: that mankind is alienated from God, his fellows, and himself."{{sfn|Vince|1988|p=15}}}} Here, the rhetoric of modernism and Genesis intersect: Garden and wasteland belong ''both'' to a biblical vocabulary and ''also to'' the vocabulary of modernity.
+Among Hemingway’s short stories from the 1930s, we have a profound existential parable, “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place.” In the café, old man and waiters stave off life’s ''nada'' experience. In his own, each character faces his ''nada'' or emptiness, seen in other Hemingway stories from the period.{{efn|“Nowhere is this ''nada'' (the void, emptiness, meaninglessness) more insistent than in Hemingway’s two African stories, ‘The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber’ and ‘The Snows of Kilimanjaro.’” {{sfn|Stolzfus|2005|p=206}}}} The story echoes Jesus’ Parable of the Prodigal Son—and Cain’s angry question to God.{{efn|The Parable begins, “There was once a man who had two sons . . .”{{sfn|1970|p=Luke 15.11}} Both stories have simplicity and profundity. Both seem answers to Cain’s question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”{{sfn|1970|p=Gen. 4.9}} Both have strong Existentialist perspectives. “The parable, then, is a microcosm of the human situation . . . a picture of man’s alienation from his essential self, from the world, and from society, and is a crystallization of our human condition.”{{sfn|Jones|1964|p=184}}}} The “clean, well-lighted place” seems a poignant ''synecdoche'' for the Garden, representing the search for a lost home, the quest for order. By story’s end, the older waiter better understands the old man’s despair, answering positively Cain’s ancient question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”{{sfn|1970|p=Gen. 4.9}} Yet, the waiter ''demythologizes'' the Lord’s Prayer and the Hail Mary, central to the God-language of Catholicism.{{efn|In a 1941 essay, “New Testament and Mythology,” Rudolf Bultmann (1884–1976) introduced ''demythologizing,'' influential in the post-war theology.{{sfn|Brown|1969|p=187}}}} Surely, this representation is the ''absence'' of God-language? After all, absence is said to be characteristic of modernism—we think of Hemingway’s iceberg motif. The waiter has replaced ''grace''—and every other theologically significant word—with ''nada,'' nothingness, emptiness. God is dead. Grace has left the building. Nihilism rules.
+Yet, two points may be made. First, the Judeo-Christian tradition yields many parallels to the ''nada'' experience: the reflections of Job; the Suffering Servant in Isaiah 53; the ocean as symbol of chaos, “the dark night of the soul” from the Spanish mystic, St. John of the Cross; the ''via negativa'' of medieval theology; the abandonment of Christ on the Cross; creation as the transforming of an earth “without form and void."{{sfn|1970|p=Gen. 1.1–2}} Before Hemingway’s epigraph from Ecclesiastes, we read, “Emptiness, emptiness, says the Speaker, emptiness, all is empty."{{sfn|1970|p=Ecc. 1.2}} Much of modern{{pg|337|338}} theology has a strong existentialist flavor.{{efn|Shaped by Heidegger, Sartre and post-war anomie, Existentialism has earlier sources in the Christian philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard, and is seen in theologians Karl Barth, Reinhold Niebuhr, Paul Tillich, and Rudolf Bultmann. On American Existentialism, Adamowski{{sfn|Adamowski|2005}} is crucial.}} Yes, two different “language games” are being played here, but they are not necessarily incompatible with one another.
 === Notes ===
@@ Line 103: / Line 109: @@
 * {{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |date=1926 |title=The Sun Also Rises |location=New York |publisher=Scribner, 2006  |ref=harv }}
+* {{cite book |last=Jones |first=Geraint Vaughan |date=1964 |title=The Art and Truth of the Parables: A Study in Their Literary Form and Modern Interpretation |location=London |publisher=S.P.C.K |ref=harv }}
 * {{cite book |last=Jung |first=Carl |date=1955 |title=Man in Search of a Soul |location=New York |publisher=Harcourt |ref=harv }}
@@ Line 121: / Line 129: @@
 * {{cite book |last=Marx |first=Karl |date=1975 |title=''A Contribution of the Critique of Hegel's'' Philosophy of Right. ''Introduction.'' |journal=Early Writings |location=Ed. Lucio Colletti. London |publisher=Penguin |pages=243-258 |ref=harv }}
+* {{cite book |title=New English Bible, The [NEB] |location=Ed. Samuel Sandmel. Oxford Study Edition. New York |publisher= Oxford University Press, 1970 |ref=harv }}
 * {{cite book |title=The 1928 Book of Common Prayer |location=New York |publisher= Oxford University Press, 1993 |ref=harv }}
@@ Line 135: / Line 145: @@
 * {{cite journal |last=Stoneback |first=H.R. |title=Pilgrimage Variations: Hemingway's Sacred Landscapes |journal=Religion and Literature |volume=35.2/3 |issue= |date=2003 |pages=49-65 |ref=harv }}
+* {{cite journal |last=Vince |first=Raymond M. |title=Alienation |journal=New Dictionary of Theology |location= Ed. Sinclair B. Ferguson, David F. Wright, and J.I. Packer. Downers Grove, IL |publisher=Inter-Varsity Press, 1988 |ref=harv }}
 * {{cite journal |last=Wagner-Martin |first=Linda |date=1987|title=Introduction |journal= New Essays on The Sun Also Rises |location= Cambridge|publisher=Cambridge University Press |ref=harv }}