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Literature and religion are never far apart. The greatest literary achievements of the West, from Aeschylus to Dante to Shakespeare, cut deeply into the soul of humanity and stir in us those ultimate questions of existence, truth, and beauty which can only be answered, if they are ever answered at all, by religious commitment or the equally passionate rejection of theology and its speculation.- from the General Editor's Preface

This book focuses on some of the greatest writers and artists of European Romanticism, including S. T. Coleridge, Wordsworth, J. M. W. Turner, Goethe, Holderlin, and, in the later nineteenth century, Matthew Arnold. Concluding with a discussion of the significance of Romanticism for our understanding of postmodernity, its various chapters explore the place of the biblical canon as the central element in the shift from the sacred to the secular, and the place of the Bible in the development of our concept of Weltliteratur, or world literature, as definitive of culture. In Romanticism, the Bible is situated between two worlds--the ancient and the modern--and remains central in our postmodern world as the power of traditional religious language fades and gives way to new perceptions of the sacred in poetry and art. This book will be of interest to all concerned with art, literature, and the development of biblical criticism and religious thought.

""Canonical criticism"" is not a recognized branch of biblical studies--granting new focus to questions of the authority and truth of the scriptural writings. Developed within a critical sense of the dominant historical-critical tone of biblical studies, canonical criticism as it has been pursued by the American scholars Brevard S. Childs and James A. Sanders stands as witness to the theological necessity of a more literary approach to the Bible.This book both criticizes the ""canonical"" enterprise, and takes it much further into readings of the canon from the perspective not only of literature, but also art, and in particular the biblical art of Rembrandt. In addition, it remains acutely conscious of the contemporary environment of our reading within the political concerns of feminist criticism, popular absorption in film and the narratives of the screen, and finally the crisis, or crises, which characterize the so-called ""postmodern condition.""What emerges is at once highly critical of traditional strategies of canonization, and at the same time constructive and concerned to recover the Bible for our own time in readings which move outside the limited academic concerns of the biblical critic or the institutions of the church and religious community.

These essays set out to consider the possible future of theology in the light of the so-called postmodern condition. They are necessarily deeply interdisciplinary, since it is a characteristic of post-Enlightenment thought to disintegrate the lines of definition which separate areas of reflection in the human sciences. Theology, we believe, must be exposed to the consequences of what has happened in literature and critical theory if it is to have any future outside the protected and isolated environment of ecclesia and the communities of the faithful.The authors represent a great diversity of opinion and discipline. Not all of us would agree with one another, and certainly there is no agreement as to what constitutes postmodernity. Yet this very diversity forms the strength and importance of the book, for there are no simple answers or straightforward definitions. Theology must recognize the pluralism within which it now must carry out its task and which alone defines its future. The keynote of the discussion is the tragic. Tragedy takes us back to the Greeks, and to Nietzsche. Both feature centrally in this presentation. It also suggests a future, a return, perhaps, through literature to theology, and not merely an end of the story as it has been traditionally sold.