Nesbit Henry Miller and Religion

Erscheinungsjahr 2012
ISBN: 978-1-135-91366-3
Verlag: CRC Press
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 176 Seiten

Reihe: Studies in Major Literary Authors

This study argues that this previously banned author devoted his entire life to articulating a religion of self-liberation in his autobiographical books, examining his life and work within the context of fringe religious movements that were linked with the avant-garde in New York City and Paris at the first of the 20th century. This study shows how these transatlantic movements – including Gurdjieff, Rosicrucianism, and Theosophy – gave him the hermeneutical devices, not to mention the creative license, to interpret texts and symbols from mainline religions in an iconoclastic manner, ranging from obscure Taoist treatises to the mystical works of Jacob Boehme. The influence of numerous philosophical sources widely circulated in his most critical years – particularly Henri Bergson’s Two Sources of Morality and Religion (1932) – also helped him develop a religious view situated between transcendence and immanence, in which self-liberation through the channeled flow of élan vital is the chief objective. Miller’s knowledge of these intellectual currents, along with his involvement with sidestream religious groups, inspired him to meld his religious and literary aims into one perplexing project.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Nesbit, Thomas

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Englische Literatur Amerikanische Literatur
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Abbreviations

Acknowledgments

Chapter One: Introduction and Methodology

Chapter Two: General Reception

Chapter Three: Avant-Garde Religion

Chapter Four: Tropic of Cancer

Chapter Five: Tropic of Capricorn

Chapter Six: The Rosy Crucifixion

Chapter Seven: Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index