A Theology Of Reading: The Hermeneutics Of LoveIf the whole of the Christian life is to be governed by the “law of love”—the twofold love of God and one's neighbor—what might it mean to read lovingly? That is the question that drives this unique book. Jacobs pursues this challenging task by alternating largely theoretical, theological chapters—drawing above all on Augustine and Mikhail Bakhtin—with interludes that investigate particular readers (some real, some fictional) in the act of reading. Among the authors considered are Shakespeare, Cervantes, Nabakov, Nicholson Baker, George Eliot, W.H. Auden, and Dickens. The theoretical framework is elaborated in the main chapters, while various counterfeits of or substitutes for genuinely charitable interpretation are considered in the interludes, which progressively close in on that rare creature, the loving reader. Through this doubled method of investigation, Jacobs tries to show how difficult it is to read charitably—even should one wish to, which, of course, few of us do. And precisely because the prospect of reading in such a manner is so offputting, one of the covert goals of the book is to make it seem both more plausible and more attractive. |
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Page 82
... one's tests , although they are perhaps the most dangerous game one could play and are in the end tests which are taken before ourselves and before no other judge❞ ( Beyond 41 ) .2 From these two convictions — that the happy person is ...
... one's tests , although they are perhaps the most dangerous game one could play and are in the end tests which are taken before ourselves and before no other judge❞ ( Beyond 41 ) .2 From these two convictions — that the happy person is ...
Page 86
... one's neighbour ' is always something sec- ondary , in part conventional and arbitrarily illusory , when compared with fear of one's neighbour , " says Nietzsche in Beyond Good and Evil ( 201 ) . And the content of this fear is ...
... one's neighbour ' is always something sec- ondary , in part conventional and arbitrarily illusory , when compared with fear of one's neighbour , " says Nietzsche in Beyond Good and Evil ( 201 ) . And the content of this fear is ...
Page 106
... one's own position of extralocality and the surplus of vision and understanding connected with it " ( Problems 299 ) . In notes made near the end of his life , Bakhtin would define " understanding as the transformation of the other's ...
... one's own position of extralocality and the surplus of vision and understanding connected with it " ( Problems 299 ) . In notes made near the end of his life , Bakhtin would define " understanding as the transformation of the other's ...
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achieve Adam Bede agape Alasdair MacIntyre Alcibiades argument Aristotelian Aristotle Aristotle's attention Auden Augustine Augustine's Augustinian Baker Bakhtin Buffalo Bill C. S. Lewis calls Cartesian Chapter character charitable reading charity Christ Christian circus claim Claudio and Don context course criticism cultural Derrida Dickens Dickens's Dickinson Dinah Dinah Morris discernment discourse distinction Don Pedro essay ethical eudaimonia friendship Gadamer genuine George Eliot gift Gradgrind hermeneutics hermeneutics of love Hero human I-for-myself interpretation Iris Murdoch Jacques Derrida Jesus justice kenosis Kierkegaard Kinbote kind knowledge language literary live magnanimous means Milbank moral narrator neighbor Nietzsche Nietzsche's notion Nussbaum one's oneself pagan Pale Fire passage perhaps person philia pleasure poem political precisely question Quixotic quoted reader Rich Scripture sense Shade simply Sleary Sleary's spirit theology things thought tion Tompkins tradition truth understanding Updike Vereker virtue W. H. Auden words writes Zarathustra