A Theology Of Reading: The Hermeneutics Of Love

Front Cover
Westview Press, Jun 17, 2009 - Religion - 448 pages
If 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.

From inside the book

Contents

Prelude
1
1 Contexts and Obstacles
9
The Illuminati
37
2 Love and Knowledge
43
Transfer of Charisma
69
3 Love and the Suspicious Spirit
77
Quixotic Reading
91
4 Kenosis
101
Two Charitable Readers
113
5 Justice
125
Postlude
145
Notes
153
Works Cited
173
Index
183
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2009)

Alan Jacobs is professor of English at Wheaton College in Illinois. He is the author of What Became of Wystan: Change and Continuity in Auden’s Poetry, A Visit to Vanity Fair and Other Moral Essays, and many essays of literary and cultural criticism. He is the recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Pew Charitable Trusts, and Theological Horizons. With his wife and son, he lives in Wheaton, Illinois.

Bibliographic information