Between Form and Faith: Graham Greene and the Catholic Novel

Martyn Sampson

Published by Fordham University Press 2021

Between Form and Faith

Graham Greene and the Catholic Novel

Martyn Sampson

In the series Studies in the Catholic Imagination: The Flannery O'Connor Trust Series

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780823294695

Overview
Contents

About this book

What is a “Catholic” novel? This book analyzes the fiction of Graham Greene in a radically new manner, considering in depth its form and content, which rest on the oppositions between secularism and religion. Sampson challenges these distinctions, arguing that Greene has a dramatic contribution to add to their methodological premises. Chapters on Greene’s four “Catholic” novels and two of his “post-Catholic” novels are complemented by fresh insight into the critical importance of his nonfiction. The study paints an image of an inviting yet beguilingly complex literary figure.

Using a provocative blend of literary theory and recent Christian theology, this book upholds the radical intersection of the religious and the secular in the fiction of Graham Greene, one of England's finest writers.

Author / Editor information

Sampson Martyn :

Martyn Sampson earned his Ph.D. from the University of the West of England, Bristol, where he taught English. He served as Director of the 2018 and 2019 Graham Greene International Festivals.Martyn Sampson earned his Ph.D. from the University of the West of England, Bristol, where he taught English. He served as Director of the 2018 and 2019 Graham Greene International Festivals.

Reviews

Mark Bosco, S.J., Georgetown University, author of Graham Greene's Catholic Imagination:
Martyn Sampson expands our understanding of both Graham Greene’s Catholic imagination and the status of theological aesthetics by focusing on the formal dimensions of Greene’s literary production over the easily abstracted theological content of his work. Sampson uses the term ‘impulses’ to interrogate the imaginative pressures of faith, belief, and doubt that drove Greene’s work throughout his long literary career. He argues, in the end, that Greene’s conception of what a Catholic novel might be is more about a genre that brings the secular and the religious closer than apart, an embrace of possibility and risk at the heart of the human condition. What is remarkable in this study is Sampson’s deep reading of the discourses of critical theory placed in conversation with the vast range of Greene’s scholarship over the past decade. Between Form and Faith is an impressive achievement

Richard Greene, University of Toronto:
Here is a book of genuine intellectual heft. In his analysis of Graham Greene, Martyn Sampson brings together the insights of contemporary critical theory with those of modern theology to turn the notion of a ‘Catholic Novel’ on its head, treating faith not as a body of beliefs external to the fictions and so to be affirmed or denied, but as a dimension of the novels’ imagined worlds. This insightful and innovative book should become essential reading for literary and theological scholars.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Introduction: The Uninstructed Catholic Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. The Ache of Modernism: Theological Aesthetics in Greene’s Nonfiction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	15
2. Catholic Novels: Religious Anx i eties in Brighton Rock and The Heart of the Matter Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	38
3. Creator of Heaven and Earth: Catholicism and the “Catholic” in The Power and the Glory and The End of the Affair Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	80
4. Entertaining the Second Vatican Council: Creative Theologies in The Honorary Consul and Monsignor Quixote Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	119
5. Theory and Theology: Graham Greene’s Remapping of Common Ground Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	161
Conclusion: Where Now? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	195
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	201
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	205
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	233
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	261

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Fordham University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 304
Keywords: Graham Greene; Catholic novel; literary; cultural and critical theory; deconstruction; theological aesthetics; Hans Urs von Balthasar; novelistic form; imagination; dogma; religion and belief; experience; empiricism and secularism

eBook

Published: August 3, 2021
ISBN: 9780823294695