Literature and Religious Experience

This book challenges the status quo of studies in literature and religion by returning to experience as a bridge between theory and practice. Essays focus on keywords of religious experience and demonstrate their applications in drama fiction and poetry.<br/> <br/>Each chapter explores the broad significance of its keyword as a category of psychological and social behavior and tracks its unique articulation by individual authors including Conrad Beecher Stowe and Melville. Together the chapters construct a critical foundation for studying literature not only from the perspectives of theology and historicism but from the ways that literary experience reflects reinforces and sometimes challenges religious experience.