This thesis is an investigation of the thematic and stylistic similarities in three novels: Wuthering Heights, Moby-Dick, and Women in Love. The most outstanding similarity is that all the novels focus on the idea of the Unity behind all created things, a Being above, through and in all created beings. In Wuthering Heights this Unity is described in terms of the Eternity of Love; in Moby-Dick, it is Infinity; in Women in Love, it is the Reality which lies beneath the surface manifestations of all things. In each of these novels, also, the protagonist gains knowledge of this Unity through love. Inspired by love, he moves from perception of unity, through purgation of the self, to union with Being. The visionary novels express essentially the same ideas as many philosophic and religious works which deal with the union of man with the Infinite, or with man's attainment of the eternal Ideals. But the visionary novels contrast with such religious or philosophic works in that they present the way to union in purely human, purely material terms. In the visionary novels, also, characteristics of poetry, such as symbolic language and heightened rhythm, are used to focus the reader's attention on the infinite which shines through the finite world of the novel. In the visionary novel, both in theme and technique, the infinite and the finite become one. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

Séraphîta (1833-1835) est une œuvre mystique d’Honoré de Balzac, dans laquelle le romancier condense le sentiment religieux qu’il a nourri dès sa jeunesse. Dans ce récit, il introduit abondamment les citations et les images bibliques, d’une part, les pensées mystiques et théosophiques, d’autre part. Notre thèse tente de mettre en lumière diverses sources bibliques et mystiques du texte balzacien, ainsi que sa propre lecture et interprétation. La première partie est consacrée à l’étude bibliographique des Bibles lues par Balzac, par Swedenborg ainsi que par deux introducteurs des pensées swedenborgiennes en France, Daillant de La Touche et Jean-Pierre Moët, sur la base de laquelle nous analysons les phrases bibliques qui parsèment Séraphîta. Dans la seconde partie, nous envisageons les trois représentations bibliques de Séraphîta-Séraphîtüs : le Séraphin, le Christ et le Verbe. Inspiré par une statue d’ange, œuvre de Théophile Bra, le romancier a développé, au cours de sa rédaction, l’image de l’être angélique ; en même temps, la fonction du Christ est transposée de manière concrète et symbolique dans ce personnage qui, à la fin, se fait Verbe dans son ascension. Dans la troisième et dernière partie, nous examinons l’influence des auteurs mystiques lus par Balzac : Thomas a Kempis, sainte Thérèse d’Avila, Jacob Bœhme, Antoinette Bourignon, Mme Guyon, Fénelon, Saint-Martin, Eckartshausen et surtout Swedenborg. Prenant l’Écriture sainte comme base solide et puisant des idées spirituelles dans divers mystiques et théosophes, le romancier rafraîchit le mysticisme chrétien pour conduire, dans une époque de doute, ses lecteurs vers la foi et l’amour de Dieu. / Séraphîta (1833-1835) is Honoré de Balzac’s mystical novel in which the author condensed his religious feelings nursed since his youth. In this work he introduced numerous biblical citations and images alongside mystical and theosophical thoughts. The present thesis aims to bring to light the diverse biblical and mystical sources of Balzac’s spiritual text, including his own readings and interpretations. Part one is a bibliographic study of Bibles used by Balzac and Swedenborg, as well as those used by Daillant de La Touche and Jean-Pierre Moët, who introduced swedenborgian thought into France; following this, biblical citations found within Séraphîta are analysed. In part two, three biblical representations of Séraphîta-Séraphîtüs are explored, namely: the Seraph, the Christ and the Word. Inspired by Théophile Bra’s statue of an angel, Balzac developed the image of the angelic being in the course of its redaction. At the same time this angel fulfils the function of the Christ, in both concrete and symbolic ways, and in its final ascension becomes the Word itself. In the third and last part, there is an exploration of mystical authors read by Balzac and their influence on his text, namely: Thomas a Kempis, Saint Teresa of Avila, Jacob Boehme, Antoinette Bourignon, Mme Guyon, Fénelon, Saint-Martin, Eckartshausen, and especially Swedenborg. It will be argued that by taking the Bible as his foundation, and drawing spiritual ideas from various mystics and theosophists, Balzac sought to refresh Christian mysticism and lead his readers, in their period of doubt, to faith and love in God.

L’Augustin de François de Sales est un Augustin « digéré ». A la suite de Montaigne, l’évêque de Genève s’approprie, en effet, l’oeuvre du docteur de la grâce en toute liberté. Il l’intègre, plus précisément, au sein du triple dialogue qu’il entretient avec les protestants, les humanistes et les mystiques, au soir de la Renaissance, en opérant non seulement des rapprochements particulièrement attendus, après un siècle de querelles théologiques, mais aussi des ruptures franches et de multiples dépassements. Pour parvenir à une telle assimilation, l'auteur de l'Introduction à la vie dévote puise abondamment dans la tradition théologique et mystique, qui accorde une place centrale à l’évêque d’Hippone. Il prépare aussi les décennies à venir qui seront marquées par l’augustinisme littéraire des moralistes et la fameuse querelle du pur amour. Il va sans dire que cette proximité de François de Sales avec le pessimiste auteur de La Cité de Dieu renvoie de lui une image qui tranche avec l’optimisme auquel il est généralement associé. / Francis of Sales’ Augustine is a “digested” one. Following Montaigne, the bishop of Geneva freely adopts the Doctor of Grace’s works. More precisely, he integrates it in the threefold dialogue he maintains with Protestants, humanists and mystics at the twilight of the Renaissance, making not only rapprochements, particulary expected after a century of theological quarrels, but also clear-cut breaks and several overruns. To achieve such assimilation, the author of the Introduction to the Devout Life draws on theological and mystical tradition that gives a central place to the bishop of Hippo. He prepares too the coming decades that will be marked by the literary Augustinism of moralists and the famous quarrel of pure love. It goes without saying that this proximity of Francis of Sales with the pessimistic author of The City of God conveys an image that severs with the optimism he is usually associated with.

Scholars attuned to the mystical content in Cormac McCarthy’s novels focus primarily on what potential religious conclusions might be drawn from them. This dissertation argues that McCarthy’s prose, approached as stylized performances of linguistic failure, performs something quite different than what the scholarly assessments claim. Rather than mining McCarthy’s novels for indirect forms of religious affirmation, this project proposes a distinctive approach to McCarthy’s work: a narrative apophatic mysticism. Attention to the non-assertive character of apophasis or “un-saying” reveals that McCarthy’s philosophical and religious allusions perform their own collapse. In the tradition of apophatic mysticism, the novels represent an ordered failure of representation that indicates toward transcendence without rendering it explicitly. The result is the fictional production of indicative signs that keep assertions and information in suspense while gesturing toward the ineffable. Adapting interpretive approaches from Michael Sells and Charles Peirce, this dissertation approaches McCarthy’s novels by means of five rhetorical categories based on mystical traditions represented by Pseudo-Dionysius, Hadewijch, Meister Eckhart, Jacob Boehme, as well as work by Elaine Scarry and Bernard McGinn. These interpretive rhetorical categories are 1) the broken references of names; 2) the logic of ontological grounds; 3) the collapse of conceptual space; 4) potential infinite capacity of bodily pain; and finally, 5) the explicit argumentative tension within the novels generated by the other four categories. Through the repetitive use of apophatic themes over several texts, McCarthy’s novels simultaneously erode assertions about the nature of fate, justice, and being, indicating that the final truth of these important concepts is not reduceable to linguistic expression or artifice. By adapting apophatic literary techniques of religious and philosophical traditions referenced in his texts, McCarthy incubates within fiction an ancient mode of rhetoric meant to orient the reader toward ineffable truths, offering narrative apophasis as a form of imaginative spiritual exercise.

The Merry Holiness - The Spirituality of S. M. Braito In His Life and Works The goal of this thesis was to inquire the main features of the spirituality of Silvestr Maria Braito, who, in his time, played one of the key roles in the forming of the Christian life in former Czechoslovakia. Above all, it aimed to look into Braito`s spirituality on two levels: on the level of his personal experience, including the experience from the communist prison, and on the level of his works in the spiritual review Na hlubinu. The objective of the thesis was to categorize Braito`s spirituality and compare his theoretical work with the experienced spiritual life, including its changes. Keywords Braito, Na hlubinu, spirituality, mysticism, prayer Počet znaků (včetně mezer): 180 245

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

This study seeks to define “mysticism” historically by looking back to the concept mystical theology (μυστική θεολογία / mystica theologia) and the association of books under this category. The first Latin canon of mystical theology developed from the ninth to the middle of the thirteenth century around translation and commentary on the writings of Dionysius by John Eriugena, Thomas Gallus, Robert Grosseteste, and Albert the Great. The second Latin canon of mystical theology developed from the thirteenth to the end of the fifteenth century and centered upon the more practical task of teaching an advanced form of unitive and apophatic prayer (largely by Bonaventure, Hugh of Balma, and Jean Gerson). Nonetheless, the writings of Dionysius and the method of apophaticism—whether understood as negative predication (apophatic theology) or imageless (apophatic) prayer—remained fundamental. The criterion of immediacy also played a central role in the development of the concept, especially after the thirteenth century. Martin Luther inherited this concept of mystical theology. Reading Dionysius through the comments of Gerson and Johann Eck, Luther understood mystical theology as an advanced form of imageless prayer that sought an unmediated, experiential knowledge of God in majesty (“the naked God”) through union. Luther’s mature writings rejected any attempt to know God in this direct way. However, drawing on Augustine and Johann Tauler, Luther redirected the elements of experiential knowledge and the method of negation that he learned in mystical literature. Rather than addressing the disproportion between the finite and the infinite, Luther’s version of negative theology addressed the disproportion between the word of the Law and the word of the Gospel. In turn, Luther redirected Dionysius’s original emphasis on the mediated nature of all theology towards the pastoral task of assurance. For Dionysius direct knowledge of God was metaphysically impossible. For Luther direct knowledge of God was not impossible, but disastrous. Only in the negation of the Law and “darkness of faith” in the spoken, external words of the Gospel could assurance be found.

[pt] O objetivo central da presente investigação é o de ressignificar o lógos cristão de modo não metafísico. Para dar conta dessa proposta, assumimos a crise das metanarrativas metafísicas caracterizadas por Heidegger como narrativas onto-teo-lógicas. Com a morte de Deus tal qual anunciada por Nietzsche, os supostos ontológicos da ontoteo-logia se deterioraram. Porquanto historicamente a teologia cristã serviu-se das narrativas metafísicas para legitimar seus discursos, torna-se necessário um outro regime de verdade não onto-teo-lógico para estruturar, no tempo da morte de Deus, as narrativas cristãs. Vislumbramos na obra de Jean-Luc Marion uma possibilidade de reestruturação do lógos cristão, uma vez que ele se abre para a possibilidade de inscrever na filosofia a revelação divina para além da onto-teo-logia. Consequentemente, por meio dele, é possível não somente ressignificar de modo não metafísico o lógos cristão, como também relacionar-se criativamente com a tradição teológica cristã. Por um lado, tal possibilidade é garantida por meio do que entendemos por hermenêutica mística, a saber, a interpretação fundada na mística entendida como experiência fruitiva do mistério divino, experiência essa que desvela um novo horizonte (não metafísico) de inteligibilidade dos discursos teológicos da tradição cristã. A partir da caracterização da hermenêutica mística, ensaiamos um confronto interpretativo com as obras de Mestre Eckhart e Martinho Lutero, com o intuito de assinalar o poder interpretativo mística como hermenêutica. Desse modo, tanto Eckhart quanto Lutero desvelam-se à hermenêutica mística de modo não metafísico, o que exemplifica a possibilidade de ressignificação da tradição cristã no tempo da morte de Deus. / [en] The main objective of this research is to reframe the Christian logos of non metaphysical way. To account for this proposal, we assume the crisis of metaphysical meta-narratives characterized by Heidegger as onto-theo logical narratives. With the death of God as is announced by Nietzsche, the ontological assumptions of onto theo-logy deteriorated. Because historically Christian theology served up the metaphysical narratives to legitimize his speeches, it is necessary to another regime of truth not onto-theo-logical to structure, at the time of death of God, the Christian narrative. We see the work of Jean-Luc Marion a chance to restructure the Christian logos, since it opens the possibility to subscribe to the philosophy divine revelation beyond the onto-theo-logy. Consequently, through it, it can not only give new meaning not metaphysical way the Christian logos, as well as to relate creatively to the Christian theological tradition. On the one hand, such a possibility is guaranteed by means of what we mean by mystical hermeneutics, namely, the interpretation based on the mystical understood as fruitive experience of the divine mystery, experience this unveiling a new horizon (not metaphysical) intelligibility of theological discourses Christian tradition. From the characterization of mystical hermeneutics, we rehearse an interpretive confrontation with the works of Meister Eckhart and Martin Luther, in order to mark the interpretive mystical power as hermeneutics. Thus, both Eckhart and Luther unfold to the mystical hermeneutics of non-metaphysical way, which exemplifies the possibility of reinterpretation of the Christian tradition in the time of the death of God.