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Full Description
Despite the burgeoning popularity of fantasy fiction and the increasing recognition of its spiritual significance and subversive effects, criticism of Romantic literature has often dismissed elements of the fantastic in the work of such canonical writers as Byron and Keats as matters of escapism, false-consciousness or wish-fulfilment. In Romantic Enchantment, Gavin Hopps challenges this view and offers an alternative 'post-nihilistic' reading of the fantastic gestures and transcendent aspirations of Romantic poetry. Drawing on the seminal reflections of George MacDonald, C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien on fantasy as well as a range of theological writing on aesthetics, this interdisciplinary study provides a provocative riposte to materialist interpretations of Romantic writing.
Contents
Introduction: The Open Space of Romanticism
A poetics of the possible
Untenanting creation of its God
Hermeneutics of suspicion and the eudaimonic turn
The white elephant of transcendence
Ontological hospitality
1. Secular Fundamentalism
Allegories of disenchantment
The broken relationship
That uncertain heaven
Being caught in a revolving door
Metaphysical optimism
2. Radical Unbelief
An allergy to transcendence
All that is solid melts into air
The post-secular return of enchantment
Weak thought
Dwelling in possibility
3. Nihilistic Semiotics
The light that never was
Ontological scandal
Icons and idols
Truthful fiction
The subjunctive opening
Demystification in reverse
4. The World 'in front of' the Text
Ideology and utopia
The poiesis of reading
Haunted immanence
Realms yet undreamed of
An enlargement of being
Conclusion: Post-Pessimism
Bibliography
Index
