I have an idea for a Txitter thread that can follow from this conversation. The interviewers ask you what might be neglected sources of other images that can positively reshape and reform the social imaginary. You answered the parables, and I would definitely be willing to explore that further. However, the question comes just after discussion of Victorian literary images, and I think your online community can answer with works of literature that Christians have much neglected. I think this is kind of what Jessica Hooten Wilson's The Scandal of Holiness is about.
On YouTube where this is video is posted, I have recommended to one of your responders that he read Crime and Punishment. I wasn't necessarily too kind to him, I confess, but if he is serious about learning, he has an opportunity to do so. (I am the "drunkenpolitician," a name which I hadn't realized is still active that I used on a defunct Bob Dylan discussion board.)
My Christian imagination, such as it is, has been deeply influenced by two writers I think most evangelicals don't know at all. One is Shakespeare's contemporary dramatist Thomas Middleton; my deep study of his plays for my dissertation completely reshaped my thinking about many current issues of theology, human sexuality and sexual activity, gender (not the same thing), grace, crime, and political engagement. If anyone wants to take me up on reading Middleton, I'll recommend his plays A Trick to Catch the Old One, Michaelmas Term, A Mad World My Masters, and The Changeling. If a person is able to find it, my book Penitent Brothellers (2000, U of Delaware Press) might help, but get it from interlibrary loan. Twenty-four years later, I would revise the way I make some points, but it can lead to seeing how Middleton can contribute to our current thinking.
More contemporary, I'd say for myself Ernest Gaines's 1993 novel A Lesson before Dying. I've taught this novel many times at the Christian university I've retired from, and it really puts to us the question of what a person's life is worth. For anyone interested, Jessica Hooten Wilson recorded a video with me about the novel, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPtWdXz_J34.
One recommendation especially for you, Karen. It's sort of niche and scholarly and readable: Jeffrey Knapp's Shakespeare's Tribe. He argues that Shakespeare and his contemporary dramatists imagined their dramatic production as engaging, almost as a ministry, in their religious culture. He doesn't say much about Middleton, alas, but there's a lot good in that book.
Nothing to be sorry about at all! This is such a rich comment. There’s so many possibilities to take some of the directions you suggest. I confess I don’t look at comments on other sites because there’s so much vitriol there so I don’t know what comment you were responding to. But your insights here are excellent and you’re reading suggestions are as well. I’m going to take some of these.
And I think this discussion is too worthy for Twitter!
I’ll think about making this a Substack newsletter and asking for comments there and quote your comment here.
I don't mind if you do, but I should add a note of . . . caution? about reading Middleton. I love him, but he has a grotesque aesthetic, about 5x more than O'Connor does. (I'm not sure that's a quantifiable measurement, but his drama is very anti-sentimental.) His humor is also vulgar--some would say raunchy--so though I am 100% certain he was a Christian, his appeal won't be universal to Christian readers and theatre audiences. Of course, there may be people reading this and saying, "Yep, I'm gonna have to give this Middleton a try." If so, he's for you. I came to him via an assignment in a grad school class, and my first reaction was, "Where have you been all my life?"
As for the comment on the YouTube page, I was responding to a person who took exception to showing mercy to a woman getting an abortion. He made a parallel to murderers, and I replied with some of my actual experience with murderers. Hence, Crime and Punishment. 'Nuff said from me. Cheers, Jack H.
I have an idea for a Txitter thread that can follow from this conversation. The interviewers ask you what might be neglected sources of other images that can positively reshape and reform the social imaginary. You answered the parables, and I would definitely be willing to explore that further. However, the question comes just after discussion of Victorian literary images, and I think your online community can answer with works of literature that Christians have much neglected. I think this is kind of what Jessica Hooten Wilson's The Scandal of Holiness is about.
On YouTube where this is video is posted, I have recommended to one of your responders that he read Crime and Punishment. I wasn't necessarily too kind to him, I confess, but if he is serious about learning, he has an opportunity to do so. (I am the "drunkenpolitician," a name which I hadn't realized is still active that I used on a defunct Bob Dylan discussion board.)
My Christian imagination, such as it is, has been deeply influenced by two writers I think most evangelicals don't know at all. One is Shakespeare's contemporary dramatist Thomas Middleton; my deep study of his plays for my dissertation completely reshaped my thinking about many current issues of theology, human sexuality and sexual activity, gender (not the same thing), grace, crime, and political engagement. If anyone wants to take me up on reading Middleton, I'll recommend his plays A Trick to Catch the Old One, Michaelmas Term, A Mad World My Masters, and The Changeling. If a person is able to find it, my book Penitent Brothellers (2000, U of Delaware Press) might help, but get it from interlibrary loan. Twenty-four years later, I would revise the way I make some points, but it can lead to seeing how Middleton can contribute to our current thinking.
More contemporary, I'd say for myself Ernest Gaines's 1993 novel A Lesson before Dying. I've taught this novel many times at the Christian university I've retired from, and it really puts to us the question of what a person's life is worth. For anyone interested, Jessica Hooten Wilson recorded a video with me about the novel, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPtWdXz_J34.
One recommendation especially for you, Karen. It's sort of niche and scholarly and readable: Jeffrey Knapp's Shakespeare's Tribe. He argues that Shakespeare and his contemporary dramatists imagined their dramatic production as engaging, almost as a ministry, in their religious culture. He doesn't say much about Middleton, alas, but there's a lot good in that book.
I went on too long here. Sorry about that.
Nothing to be sorry about at all! This is such a rich comment. There’s so many possibilities to take some of the directions you suggest. I confess I don’t look at comments on other sites because there’s so much vitriol there so I don’t know what comment you were responding to. But your insights here are excellent and you’re reading suggestions are as well. I’m going to take some of these.
And I think this discussion is too worthy for Twitter!
I’ll think about making this a Substack newsletter and asking for comments there and quote your comment here.
I don't mind if you do, but I should add a note of . . . caution? about reading Middleton. I love him, but he has a grotesque aesthetic, about 5x more than O'Connor does. (I'm not sure that's a quantifiable measurement, but his drama is very anti-sentimental.) His humor is also vulgar--some would say raunchy--so though I am 100% certain he was a Christian, his appeal won't be universal to Christian readers and theatre audiences. Of course, there may be people reading this and saying, "Yep, I'm gonna have to give this Middleton a try." If so, he's for you. I came to him via an assignment in a grad school class, and my first reaction was, "Where have you been all my life?"
As for the comment on the YouTube page, I was responding to a person who took exception to showing mercy to a woman getting an abortion. He made a parallel to murderers, and I replied with some of my actual experience with murderers. Hence, Crime and Punishment. 'Nuff said from me. Cheers, Jack H.
This is why I don’t read those comments! 😂 Thank you for your service, sir!