# Peter Leithart's Books on Literature



## Reformed Covenanter (Jun 9, 2008)

Is it worth reading Peter Leithart's books on Jane Austin, William Shakespeare, ancient and western literature etc.?


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## py3ak (Jun 9, 2008)

I don't think so. I while back I got his book on Shakespeare out of the library, and these were my thoughts at the time.



> I read 2 of his “guides” --the guide to Henry V and to The Taming of the Shrew, since I am currently without my Shakespeare and those are the two he treats with which I have the greatest familiarity. It is not a wholly bad book, although there is not a lot of useful information. On the whole, my impression is that this sort of literary criticism comes about more than anything because people feel this odd urge to teach Shakespeare, instead of reading him; and the incessant demand for the production of rotten secondary literature in the form of essays creates a demand for bad secondary literature in the form of guides, etc. The great thing is that the little quotes from Shakespeare motivate one to read the plays again. But there was a rather grave methodological mistake exemplified in his discussion of The Taming of the Shrew, which, as it bears on other points as well, I would like to draw out a little more thoroughly.
> On pp.225,226 we find this revealing statement: “We find in Scripture and history the same principle at work: First there is a reality, whether for good or ill, that exists only in word, and then the word remakes the world. First God justifies—pronounces righteous—the ungodly;then the ungodly are sanctified—made righteous. In the beginning, always, is the word; then the word becomes flesh and dwells among us.” I seize upon this statement, not for its doctrine, but for its method. Clearly the statement “the word was made flesh” does not relate to a word creating the reality spoken in it (note again: I am not denying his point, I am denying that his text makes it). Now I am quite confident that Leithart knows this, and is aware of the proper interpretation and primary referent of John 1:14. But if this is so, then it does show a certain willingness to make accomodatory uses of Scripture: to “bend” a text to one's purpose, knowingly. Now this same willingness to adapt Scripture is shown towards Shakespeare.
> On pp.234,235 he has quoted Petruchio's speech from Act 4, Scene 1 where he explains how he intends to keep Katherina from sleep. There are three lines critical for this discussion:
> _Ay, and amid all this hurly I intend_
> ...



In my view criticism has been going down a fruitless path, in that most criticism is agenda-driven. You see it very clearly in the case of homosexuals (dating at least from Wilde with his gaseous nonsense about Shakespeare's dark secret) attempting to claim all sorts of authors (even, absurdly, Katherine Mansfield). You can see it in the stupid psychoanalysis of Dickinson's "I started early, took my dog", or the people who will continue to insist that _The Lord of the Rings_ is about World War II. But Christians are not free from these failings: with a pious or a polemical or perhaps merely a pretentious interest we too are guilty of imagining that an author says what we want him to say: and that is what is thought of as literary criticism. But although great authors do not object to us perceiving meanings and connections they may not have intended (C.S. Lewis and Stephen Donaldson have both made similar remarks), it is another thing to pretend that our imaginations are the author's deliverances. I think it is safe to say that most criticism now-a-days is more about the critic than about the author. You'd be better off with C.S. Lewis, with the _Oxford History of English Literature_, with George Orwell's essays on literature, or with Samuel Johnson.

See also Samuel Johnson, for a sober restraint on critical flights, and Coleridge for an explanation of why people can't help importing grotesque nonsense into what they read..


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## MW (Jun 9, 2008)

py3ak said:


> See also Samuel Johnson, for a sober restraint on critical flights



Very good. Especially this:



> It is possible, says Hooker, that by long circumlocution, from any one truth all truths may be inferred. Of all homogeneous truths at least, of all truths respecting the same general end, in whatever series they may be produced, a concatenation by intermediate ideas may be formed, such as, when it is once shewn, shall appear natural; but if this order be reversed, another mode of connection equally specious may be found or made.



In other words, literary critics should,

Read what is written
and learn other's views;
Else you'll be smitten
By self-styled virtues.


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## Kevin (Jun 9, 2008)

uhmm...I liked it...

Ducking now to avoid the rotten fruit being tossed my way...


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## Reformed Covenanter (Jun 10, 2008)

armourbearer said:


> In other words, literary critics should,
> 
> Read what is written
> and learn other's views;
> ...



Judging by Ruben's post, this is the problem with Peter Leithart's books; I still would like to read them though.


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## RamistThomist (Jun 10, 2008)

I am going to score a lot of heresy points for this, but I liked them.

Everyone bashes his Shakespeare book, but that is the weakest one. His one on Dante is good. A lot of people liked his Jane Austen one.

His one _Deep Comedy_ is one of the best books I have ever read, hands down.


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## a mere housewife (Jun 10, 2008)

I don't think Ruben's point is whether or not his literary criticism is good reading, but whether or not it is good literary criticism. The title of his work on Austen betrays that however good a book it may be, it is not going to be literary criticism. A critic evaluates something not for what applications they can make of it but for what it _is._ Leithart may make some great Christian applications and this may be a good way to redeem literature, but he fudges about what things really are. This is not the way to redeem the field of literary criticism.


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## a mere housewife (Jun 10, 2008)

(just wanted to add that though it of course, isn't a matter of _heresy_ as regards Jane Austen etc, not being intellectually careful enough to distinguish accommodations of a thing from the thing itself or approach it first and foremost for what it actually is has more consequences when it comes to Scripture and to theology. -another reason I'm not a fan of the method of interpretation that takes _The Merchant of Venice _as a fable about redemptive history.)


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## py3ak (Jun 10, 2008)

Bad literary criticism isn't heresy; it doesn't promote good habits of thought, though. And bad literary criticism is a sort of plague, a creeping malaise obscuring the virtues and benefits of literature. Read _The Discarded Image_, or _Serendipities: Language and Lunacy_.


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## RamistThomist (Jun 11, 2008)

I said heresy points because I was promoting Leithart's book, a man who on this board has been called a heretic in the past.


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## Reformed Covenanter (Jun 11, 2008)

I ordered his book _Deep Comedy: Trinity, Tragedy & Hope in Western Literature_ from a UK bookseller today for very little money (along with _Solomon Among the Postmoderns_).

It's always best to go to the horses' mouth, though I will bear in mind the comments made here.


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## py3ak (Jun 11, 2008)

Yes, I know. I think you'll collect more points for saying "heresy points" than for mentioning his name, though!

Daniel, does that mean you'll go directly to Jane Austen as well?


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## Reformed Covenanter (Jun 11, 2008)

py3ak said:


> Yes, I know. I think you'll collect more points for saying "heresy points" than for mentioning his name, though!
> 
> Daniel, does that mean you'll go directly to Jane Austen as well?



I need to read more literature; this might provoke me to do more reading of that genre. I studied English Literature as part of a course to get me into University a few years ago (it was a course for over 21s), but have done little since.


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## py3ak (Jun 11, 2008)

Well, if you are going to read criticism, I would think you'd want to read some of the substance being criticized as well. I am very thankful that the only literature courses I ever took were short, obviously stupid, and mostly dealt with books I had already read. If my first exposure to _Hamlet_ had been in my paltry high school literature book, I really would be much poorer. You should read Lewis Carroll.


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## Davidius (Jun 11, 2008)

It encourages me to see a Christian in academia working on literature. The only other I know of is Philip Ryken. As a Classics student, I thoroughly enjoyed _Deep Comedy_. It touched on some of my own research interests.


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## Reformed Covenanter (Jun 11, 2008)

Davidius said:


> It encouraged me to see a Christian in academia working on literature. The only other I know of is Philip Ryken.



What about Leland Ryken; haven't he and Phil done a literary study Bible? Have either of them written anything significant on literature from a Christian perspective outside of that?


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## RamistThomist (Jun 12, 2008)

Leithart's book on Dante--_Ascent to Love_ is much better per literary criticism. The charges of Christianizing a text do not apply on this one. He is dealing with medieval liteature and it's okay to do that.


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## Davidius (Jun 12, 2008)

Daniel Ritchie said:


> Davidius said:
> 
> 
> > It encouraged me to see a Christian in academia working on literature. The only other I know of is Philip Ryken.
> ...



I think so, although maybe I was thinking of Leland. I searched for Philip Ryken on Amazon and found some books on art and culture, but nothing specifically on literature. I don't have time to search more thoroughly right now (honeymoon and all...we're getting ready to go to Disney's Animal Kingdom!), so let me know what you come up with.


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## Reformed Covenanter (Jun 12, 2008)

Davidius said:


> Daniel Ritchie said:
> 
> 
> > Davidius said:
> ...



If you check out Leland Ryken's stuff on Amazon there seems to be a number of books on literature from a Christian persepective (with stuff on John Milton and CS Lewis, among others). Enjoy the film.


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## py3ak (Jun 12, 2008)

Jacob, I haven't read Leithart on Dante: _of making many books there is no end_, and having read what should be enough of his stuff to reward me if it were going to profit me, I'm not highly motivated to try. But if a man sees redemptive history where is it not, is there any guarantee that he won't see other things where they are not? If redemptive history is his consuming passion, then maybe that is the only place where he projects. But I have to wonder: does he read Italian? Does he have an ear (for instance, could he figure out how to pronounce an unfamiliar and metrically ambiguous word by the demands of the meter?)? If not, how can he be competent to observe the effects that Dante produces and explain how they are produced?


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## RamistThomist (Jun 12, 2008)

I know he can read Latin. I dont know about Italian. I have emailed him a few times on other subj3cts, but the server was down. He doesn't read redemptive history into Dante. He knows too much of medieval theology/history to do that.


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## py3ak (Jun 12, 2008)

Well, redemptive history was just an example. What was worth reading about the book? I mean, specifically how did it contribute to your ability to enjoy Dante?


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## RamistThomist (Jun 12, 2008)

Ironically, it was Leithart's essay in _Revolutions in Worldview_ (something on medieval theology) that really made Dante come alive. I read _Ascent to Love_ too early on in my intellectual development to really appreciate Dante. I was more interested in it because he dealt with Edmund Spenser, who suffers from a dearth of commentary. 

I have become a Leithart advocate of late after reading _Deep Comedy_. It is a postmodern (in the good sense) Trinitarian critique of postmodernism (in the bad sense). He interacts with Derrida and the ancient myths to show the ontology of violence inherent in non-Christian schemes.


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## py3ak (Jun 12, 2008)

On Spenser, Alastair Fowler edited and supplemented Lewis's notes on him. I just got that book out of the library and I think it'll be pretty good, though from a quick glance you can tell that some parts are Lewis and some are not! I started to read _Deep Comedy_ on Google books, but for some reason some pages were missing.


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## a mere housewife (Jun 12, 2008)

Jacob, I started reading it when Ruben had it up from google but balked at this, in the first couple pages:

'...First, in deep comedy the happy ending is uncontaminated by any fear of future tragedy, and, second, in deep comedy the characters do not simply end as well as they began, but progress beyond their beginning. Comedy may move from glory to glory restored, but deep comedy moves from glory to added glory...
'Is Christianity eschatologically comic _because_ it is trinitarian? Is history moving toward a comic climax as a revelation of the nature of the triune God? To ask the question from the other end: Is there an "eschatological moment" in the life of the Trinity? Is the life of the Trinity comic? In this book, I sketch the outlines of an affirmative answer to these questions. If trinitarian theology is an answer to the question, "Given the gospel story, who must God be for this to be possible?"...'

I wasn't confident that this is a strictly accurate interpretation of what trinitarian theology is, or how it is related to Western literature upfront and left off reading to ask Ruben about it but I think I fell asleep . & then we discovered the missing pages. Can you shed any light on how he develops the 'eschatological moment' in the life of the Trinity theme throughout the book? Also do you think he is reading some element of 'necessity' about history back into the nature of God (which was part of what I wanted to ask Ruben)?


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## RamistThomist (Jun 12, 2008)

Think of the economic trinity: God's expression of himself in our redemption (Athanasius among others). When Leithart says "eschatological moment," he doesn't mean that a new part of God came into being. It is as if God's revelation of himself to his creation became more comic. 

His point is that redemptive history moves from glory to glory (2 Cor 3). Pagan cosmologies and stories of salvation, even in their more comic moments (Aenid), are necessarily tragic (for example, Aeneas brings the fires and smoke of Troy to Carthage). He then uses the work of Jaques Derrida to illustrate the contrast. For Hesiod and Derrida, the supplement (Zeus) is alway violent and damaging to the source (Chronus). Zeus kills Chronus/Titans/something like that. this is what philosophers call an ontology of violence. Their perception of reality must necessarily be violent (and they are right, given their premises).

Christ, on the other hand, doesn't do violence to the Father, but reveals the Father. Loves the Father. Instead of an ontology of violence, the Christian story maintains perichoresis. 

Back to the eschatological moment: after Christianity began winning cultural/intellectual wars in the West (sorry Anabaptists out there!), there began a different shift in literature (although this isn't necessarily complete). The medieval comedy, in a broad picture, does not have the despair of a Greek tragedy. Even in its bawdy moments, read _The Decameron_.

I understand you balking at "eschatological moment in the life of the Trinity." It is a bad phrasing of langauge. He shold have referred it to western culture.


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## RamistThomist (Jun 12, 2008)

don't know about the necessity of nature thing in God. I need to dwell on that.


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## Davidius (Jun 12, 2008)

Daniel Ritchie said:


> Enjoy the film.



It's a theme park. 

Animal Kingdom


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## Reformed Covenanter (Jun 13, 2008)

Davidius said:


> Daniel Ritchie said:
> 
> 
> > Enjoy the film.
> ...


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