An exploration of the relationship between literature and religion, which adopts an interdisciplinary approach, aiming to provide an introduction to the variety of ways in which literature, literary theory and theology are related.

These essays are written by scholars from widely differing disciplines and traditions. Theologians, philosophers, literary critics and historians of ideas approach the question of how the judaeo-Christian tradition of theological reflection has suffered from and will negotiate the emergence of postmodern theory and practice in literature and criticism. Chapters deal with specific texts from Euripides to contemporary fiction, and with the traditions of cultural theory from Nietszche to Benjamin, to Derrida and what David Klemm identifies as the tragedy of present theology.

The central themes of this collection of essays are the mystery of time past, present and future, and the problem of redemption. They are concerned with modern literature, with the threat of meaninglessness in the postmodern condition, and with the possibility of salvation. In an age of deferral and difference, this book addresses itself to eschatology and apocalypse, and redemption in, through, but particularly of, time itself. Hell and madness are never far away, yet the refiguration of time and the breaking in of the transcendent continue to suggest theological possibilities beyond the...