From William Shakespeare to Marilynne Robinson, this book examines representations of interpersonal reconciliation in works of literature, focusing on how these representations draw on the language of divine forgiveness. Christian theology sees divine forgiveness as conditional upon a sinner's remorse and self-abasement before God, but also as a form of grace - unconditional and rooted only in divine love. Van Dijkhuizen explores what happens when this paradoxical forgiveness paradigm comes to serve as a template for interpersonal reconciliation. As A Literary History of Reconciliation shows, literary writers imagine interpersonal reconciliation as being centrally about power and hierarchy, and present forgiveness without power as longed for but ever elusive. Drawing on major works of literature from the early modern era to the present day, this book explores works by John Milton, Virginia Woolf, J.M. Coetzee, Ian McEwan and others to craft a literary history that will appeal to readers interested in literature, religion and philosophy.

An examination of the themes of pain and compassion in key Renaissance writers, at a time when religious attitudes to suffering were changing. A deeply original work of scholarship. Through fine close readings of primary and secondary texts, the author offers the fullest account we have of the related phenomena of pain, sympathy, and sensation in early modern culture.Michael Schoenfeldt, John R. Knott, Jr., Professor of English, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor In late medieval Catholicism, pain was seen as a way of imitating Christ, and as an avenue to salvation. During the earlymodern period, Protestant theologians came to reject these assumptions, and attempted to redefine and circumscribe the spiritual meaning of suffering. The rethinking of the meaning of pain during the early modern era is the central theme of this book. The author pays particular attention to how literary writers explored the issue of pain, by placing their work in a broad context of devotional, theological, philosophical and medical texts on suffering. In detailed readings of Alabaster, Donne, Herbert, Crashaw, Lanyer, Spenser, Milton and Montaigne, he shows that early modern culture located the meaning of pain in its capacity to elicit compassion in others - yet the nature of thiscompassion was also fiercely contested. Dr JAN FRANS VAN DIJKHUIZEN is Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Leiden.

From William Shakespeare to Marilynne Robinson, this book examines representations of interpersonal reconciliation in works of literature, focusing on how these representations draw on the language of divine forgiveness. Christian theology sees divine forgiveness as conditional upon a sinner's remorse and self-abasement before God, but also as a form of grace - unconditional and rooted only in divine love. Van Dijkhuizen explores what happens when this paradoxical forgiveness paradigm comes to serve as a template for interpersonal reconciliation. As A Literary History of Reconciliation shows, literary writers imagine interpersonal reconciliation as being centrally about power and hierarchy, and present forgiveness without power as longed for but ever elusive. Drawing on major works of literature from the early modern era to the present day, this book explores works by John Milton, Virginia Woolf, J.M. Coetzee, Ian McEwan and others to craft a literary history that will appeal to readers interested in literature, religion and philosophy.