This highly readable book represents a unique approach to the controverted matter of the relations of literature and religion, eschewing linear argument in favor of a nuanced essayistic manner that elucidates texts and issues of immediate and lasting concern.

Autorentext
G. DOUGLAS ATKINS is professor of English at the University of Kansas, USA and author or co-editor of thirteen books, including the forthcoming On the Familiar Essay (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).

Inhalt
Introduction: 'The hint half guessed, the gift half understood' Essaying the Via Media : John Dryden's Religio Laici and Alexander Pope's An Essay on Man ' A grander scheme of salvation than the christian religion': John Keats, a New Religion of Love, and the Hoodwinking of 'The Eve of St. Agnes' George Eliot's Layman's Faith: The Lyrical Essay-Novel Adam Bede Priests of Eternal Imagination: Literature and Religion The Instance of James Joyce and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man Journey towards Understanding: T.S. Eliot and the Progress of the 'Intelligent Believer' 'Religious Feeling without Religious Images': E.B. White's Essays Religio Criticae: An Essay on Reception and Response