The Sacred and Secular Canon in Romanticism

David Jasper focuses upon some of the greatest writers and artists of European Romanticism, including S.T. Coleridge, Wordsworth, J.M.W. Turner, Goethe, Holderin and, in the later nineteenth century, Matthew Arnold. Concluding with a discussion of the significance of Romanticism for our understanding of postmodernity, the book's various chapters explore the place of the Biblical canon as the central element in the shift from the sacred to the secular, and the place of the Bible in the development of our concept of "Weltliteratur," or the world of literature as definitive of culture. In Romanticism, the Bible is situated between two worlds--the ancient and the modern--and remains central in our postmodern world as traditional religious language and gives way to new perceptions of the sacred in poetry and art. This book will be of interest to all concerned with art, literature and the development of Biblical criticism and religious thought.