Djuna Barnes and Theology: Melancholy, Body, Theodicy

Modernism, religion, and queer bodies come together in this study of Djuna Barnes's writings and art. Examining the role of Barnes's theological imagination in relation to a phenomenology of suffering, joy, and sexed embodiment, this book unfolds an intricate synthesis of theology, psychoanalysis, and narrative theory to interrogate how queerness informs her art.

Providing an original contribution to religious and literary theory, Ng develops a neo-ontological account of melancholy in relation to the myth of the Fall and provides a novel framework for understanding comedy and tragedy in relation to the question of theodicy.

Presented in light of a large body of new archival evidence, Barnes's works are also examined for the first time in relation to a wide range of intertextual and intermedial encounters, including the medieval mysticism of Marguerite Porete, Stravinsky's music, 16th- and 18th-century engravings by Albrecht Dürer and Joseph Ottinger, and French and Russian literature from Baudelaire and Lautréamont to Proust and Dostoevsky.

Author: Zhao Ng
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Published: 01/13/2022
Pages: 216
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.07lbs
Size: 9.21h x 6.14w x 0.56d
ISBN: 9781350256026

About the Author
Mason, Emma: - Emma Mason is Professor of English and Comparative Literary Studies at the University of Warwick, UK, and an editor of Bloombury's New Directions in Religion and Literature series.Knight, Mark: - Mark Knight is Associate Professor in the Department of English at the University of Toronto, Canada. His books include Chesterton and Evil (2004), Biblical Religion and the Novel, 1700-2000 (co-edited with Thomas Woodman, 2006), Nineteenth-Century Religion and Literature: An Introduction (co-written with Emma Mason, OUP, 2006), An Introduction to Religion and Literature (2009) and Religion, Literature and the Imagination (co-edited with Louise Lee, 2009). Current projects include: a monograph entitled Good Words: Evangelicalism and the Victorian Novel; a co-authored book (with Emma Mason) entitled Faithful Reading: Poetry and Christian Practice; and a co-edited volume (with Jo Carruthers and Andrew Tate) entitled A Bible and Literature Reader. With Emma Mason, Mark Knight edits the book series New Directions in Religion and Literature for Bloomsbury Academic.Ng, Zhao: - Zhao Ng is a Fellow at the Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford, UK. Her articles have been published by or are forthcoming with English Literary History, Twentieth-Century Literature, symploke, Literature and Theology, and Religion & Literature.