User:Sherrilledwards/sandbox: Difference between revisions

(3 intermediate revisions by the same user not shown)

Line 40:

Today, the relationship between religion and modernity is more nuanced than in the naturalistic Nineteenth Century. We recognize a wide spectrum from faith through doubt to atheism. But at the risk of simplification, there seem to be two main approaches. For conservative Christianity and Judaism, religious commitment may be expressed as a ''rejection'' of modernity, using an either/or approach to truth. For those with liberal perspectives on Christianity and Judaism, religious commitment may be regarded as ''complementary'' to modernity, utilizing a both/and approach to truth. That complementary perspective may remind us of wave-particle duality in quantum mechanics. This is not simply a literary trope.{{efn| Planck, Einstein, and Heisenberg revealed the inescapable reality of indeterminacy in our world.}} In both humanities and physical sciences, there will be no return to rigid determinism.

~~== BELOW NOT YET PASTED TO REAL PAGE ==~~

=== God-Language in Hemingway: "Scared Stiff Looking at It" ===

Line 89:

Line 87:

Hemingway did struggle against nihilism, at times teetering on the edge of chaos. Of his writing, Ihab Hassan says, “literary statement approaches{{pg|340|341}} the edge; language implies the abolition of statement."{{sfn|Hassan|1987|p=299}} Yet, Hemingway also redefines the ''sacred,'' reformulating ''grace'' beyond the borders of organized religion. Without ceasing to be a modernist, he is also deeply rooted, as Stoneback claims, “in the incarnational paradigms of Catholic Christianity.”{{sfn|Stoneback|2003|p=50}} Like Kierkegaard, his God-language is covert and subtle; but it does exist.{{efn|“It was long believed in many quarters that Hemingway’s early Protestantism made him a “nominal” Catholic, pressured by Pauline into joining the Church. The opposite may be true: his early experiences led him to embrace Catholicism. He had found his father’s faith cold and unsatisfying; he had known his grandfather’s belief in a God of warmth and trust and now sought it for himself.”{{sfn|Buske|2002|p=85}}}}

== BELOW NOT YET PASTED TO REAL PAGE ==

=== God-Language in Mailer: Protagonist in the Cosmic Struggle ===

Line 111:

But here we may find a cognitive divide on the nature of language. Theological fundamentalists believe language to be essentially literal, ''determined'' for all time, even restricted to the letters of the King James Bible of 1611. Theological liberals, on the other hand, will see language as metaphorical, ''indeterminate,'' always in flux. As with Hemingway, Mailer’s God language would seem incompatible with that fundamentalist perspective, but compatible with a more liberal viewpoint.

Mailer asks hard questions. In ''Gospel,'' he asks if there is a God who is more than nostalgia enshrined in ancient words. In ''Castle,'' he asks if we shall avoid the lure of Fascism and another Hitler. Is there a God who speaks to modernity and the evils of the Holocaust? With D.T. as narrator in ''Castle,'' we encounter a Nazi officer in the SS. Then we discover he is also “an officer of the Evil One.”{{sfn|Mailer|2007|p=71}} Mailer recognizes the risk that he runs, “Given the present authority of the scientific world, most well-educated people are ready to bridle at the notion of such an entity as the Devil.”{{sfn|Mailer|2007|p=71}} Robert Begiebing comments, “The suspension of disbelief required is audacious.”{{sfn|Begiebing|2007|p=216}} But Mailer reminds us that our modern world has little understanding of Hitler, “the most mysterious human being of the century.”{{sfn|Mailer|2007|p=72}}

As in ''Gospel'' ten years earlier, ''The Castle'' in the Forest operates in two distinct realms, “the metaphysical and the mundane.”{{sfn|Begiebing|2007|p=216}} Metaphysical language is hard to decode. In fact, in the 1920s Logical Positivists denied ''any'' meaning to such metaphysical language, a view later modified by{{pg|343|344}} Karl Popper. God and Satan “appear” in a strange No Man’s Land, at the frontiers of human experience. But thinkers from Augustine to Einstein have recognized that strangeness, using tropes of analogy and metaphor.

=== Notes ===

Line 129:

Line 135:

* {{cite book |last=Baker |first=Carlos |date=1972 |title=Hemingway: The Writer as Artist |location=4th ed. Princeton |publisher= Princeton University Press |ref=harv }}

* {{cite journal |last=Begiebing |first=Robert |title=Castle Mailer |journal=The Mailer Review |volume=1.1 |date=2007 |pages=215-222 |ref=harv }}

* {{cite book |last=Berger |first=Peter L. |date=1969 |title=A Rumor of Angels: Modern Society and the Rediscovery of the Supernatural |location=Garden City |publisher= Doubleday |ref=harv }}

@@ Line 40: / Line 40: @@
 Today, the relationship between religion and modernity is more nuanced than in the naturalistic Nineteenth Century. We recognize a wide spectrum from faith through doubt to atheism. But at the risk of simplification, there seem to be two main approaches. For conservative Christianity and Judaism, religious commitment may be expressed as a ''rejection'' of modernity, using an either/or approach to truth. For those with liberal perspectives on Christianity and Judaism, religious commitment may be regarded as ''complementary'' to modernity, utilizing a both/and approach to truth. That complementary perspective may remind us of wave-particle duality in quantum mechanics. This is not simply a literary trope.{{efn| Planck, Einstein, and Heisenberg revealed the inescapable reality of indeterminacy in our world.}} In both humanities and physical sciences, there will be no return to rigid determinism.
-== BELOW NOT YET PASTED TO REAL PAGE ==
 === God-Language in Hemingway: "Scared Stiff Looking at It" ===
@@ Line 89: / Line 87: @@
 Hemingway did struggle against nihilism, at times teetering on the edge of chaos. Of his writing, Ihab Hassan says, “literary statement approaches{{pg|340|341}} the edge; language implies the abolition of statement."{{sfn|Hassan|1987|p=299}} Yet, Hemingway also redefines the ''sacred,'' reformulating ''grace'' beyond the borders of organized religion. Without ceasing to be a modernist, he is also deeply rooted, as Stoneback claims, “in the incarnational paradigms of Catholic Christianity.”{{sfn|Stoneback|2003|p=50}} Like Kierkegaard, his God-language is covert and subtle; but it does exist.{{efn|“It was long believed in many quarters that Hemingway’s early Protestantism made him a “nominal” Catholic, pressured by Pauline into joining the Church. The opposite may be true: his early experiences led him to embrace Catholicism. He had found his father’s faith cold and unsatisfying; he had known his grandfather’s belief in a God of warmth and trust and now sought it for himself.”{{sfn|Buske|2002|p=85}}}}
+== BELOW NOT YET PASTED TO REAL PAGE ==
 === God-Language in Mailer: Protagonist in the Cosmic Struggle ===
@@ Line 111: / Line 111: @@
 But here we may find a cognitive divide on the nature of language. Theological fundamentalists believe language to be essentially literal, ''determined'' for all time, even restricted to the letters of the King James Bible of 1611. Theological liberals, on the other hand, will see language as metaphorical, ''indeterminate,'' always in flux. As with Hemingway, Mailer’s God language would seem incompatible with that fundamentalist perspective, but compatible with a more liberal viewpoint.
+Mailer asks hard questions. In ''Gospel,'' he asks if there is a God who is more than nostalgia enshrined in ancient words. In ''Castle,'' he asks if we shall avoid the lure of Fascism and another Hitler. Is there a God who speaks to modernity and the evils of the Holocaust? With D.T. as narrator in ''Castle,'' we encounter a Nazi officer in the SS. Then we discover he is also “an officer of the Evil One.”{{sfn|Mailer|2007|p=71}} Mailer recognizes the risk that he runs, “Given the present authority of the scientific world, most well-educated people are ready to bridle at the notion of such an entity as the Devil.”{{sfn|Mailer|2007|p=71}} Robert Begiebing comments, “The suspension of disbelief required is audacious.”{{sfn|Begiebing|2007|p=216}}  But Mailer reminds us that our modern world has little understanding of Hitler, “the most mysterious human being of the century.”{{sfn|Mailer|2007|p=72}}
+As in ''Gospel'' ten years earlier, ''The Castle'' in the Forest operates in two distinct realms, “the metaphysical and the mundane.”{{sfn|Begiebing|2007|p=216}} Metaphysical language is hard to decode. In fact, in the 1920s Logical Positivists denied ''any'' meaning to such metaphysical language, a view later modified by{{pg|343|344}} Karl Popper. God and Satan “appear” in a strange No Man’s Land, at the frontiers of human experience. But thinkers from Augustine to Einstein have recognized that strangeness, using tropes of analogy and metaphor.
 === Notes ===
@@ Line 129: / Line 135: @@
 * {{cite book |last=Baker |first=Carlos  |date=1972 |title=Hemingway: The Writer as Artist |location=4th ed. Princeton |publisher= Princeton University Press |ref=harv }}
+* {{cite journal |last=Begiebing |first=Robert |title=Castle Mailer |journal=The Mailer Review |volume=1.1 |date=2007 |pages=215-222 |ref=harv }}
 * {{cite book |last=Berger |first=Peter L.  |date=1969 |title=A Rumor of Angels: Modern Society and the Rediscovery of the Supernatural |location=Garden City |publisher= Doubleday |ref=harv }}