(Un)faithful Texts?
Religion in French and Francophone Literature,
from the 1780s to the 1980s.
Edited
by
PAUL COOKE and JANE LEE
(University of Exeter, UK)
(Un)Faithful
Texts?—the title of this volume is deliberately hesitant and interrogative since
the essays it contains explores the interface between religion and literature in ways
which highlight ambivalence and ambiguity. The
contributions, provided by an international group of academics writing from varying
degrees of faith and unbelief, and employing various critical and ideological approaches,
demonstrate the fruitfulness of a heterogeneous approach to the relation between religion
and modern literature within a French/Francophone context.
This
volume demonstrates how different writers from eighteenth-century deist Bernardin de
Saint-Pierre to contemporary authors like Annie Ernaux and Jacqueline Saveria Huré have
used the literary as a means of exploring and formulating a response to various religious
issues. The literary text offers a matrix in
which philosophical and spiritual experiment can take place, and the transcendent can be
approached. The variety and wealth of the
experiments examined here are a testimony to what a powerful theological and contemplative
tool the literary can be. (Un)faithful
Texts? will be of interest to readers in modern French literature, cultural history,
theology, and the ecclesiastical history of Quebec.
Paul Cooke’s
primary research interest is the interface between religion and literature, particularly
in connection with twentieth-century French Catholic authors. He has previously published work on Mauriac,
Bernanos, Cesbron, Saint-Pierre, and Sartre.
Jane Lee is a Gide
specialist, having completed a critical edition of his Thésée for her doctoral
thesis. Her main interests at present are in
the field of modern Carribean Francophone authors, especially Maryse Condé on whom she
has published a number of articles.
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