Writing the Incommensurable
Book Description
In the depths of spiritual uncertainty, where faith meets doubt and the divine seems impossibly distant, three remarkable writers found their most profound voices. Writing the Incommensurable explores how Soren Kierkegaard, Christina Rossetti, and Gerard Manley Hopkins navigated the treacherous terrain between religious longing and literary expression.
Mary E. Finn reveals a fascinating paradox at the heart of spiritual writing: the very act of putting faith into words can complicate, even compromise, the religious vision the writer seeks to communicate. Drawing on Kierkegaard's pseudonymous works, she examines four crucial responses to what Kierkegaard termed "the incommensurable" - that unbridgeable gap between our inner spiritual reality and the external world we inhabit.
Through the lenses of anxiety, lyric voice, repetition, and radical choice, this study illuminates a profound dilemma. When personal doubt and religious inadequacy paradoxically fuel literary success, what does this mean for the believing writer? How does one transcend the particularized "writing self" to reach authentic spiritual expression?
The answer, Finn suggests, lies not in resolution but in the struggle itself. The futility of attempting to bridge the divine gap creates its own peculiar triumph. The writing that emerges becomes material evidence of the spiritual battle, imbued with the pathos and beauty of all monuments to causes that cannot be won yet cannot be abandoned.
Who Is This For?
📖 Reading Level: Short (< 200 pages) (~5 hours)
📄 Length: 180 pages
What You'll Discover
- ✓ Explore Su˜nde
- ✓ Explore History and criticism
- ✓ Explore Hopkins, gerard manley, 1844-1889
- ✓ Explore Christian poetry
- ✓ Explore Rossetti, christina georgina, 1830-1894
- ✓ Explore Religion
- ✓ Explore Immanence of God in literature
- ✓ Explore English Christian poetry
