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Catholic Literary Theory: the Conditional Existentialism of Four Protagonists and Their Creators

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Catholic Literary Theory: the Conditional Existentialism of Four Protagonists and Their Creators University of Denver Digital Commons @ DU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Graduate Studies 1-1-2017 Catholic Literary Theory: The Conditional Existentialism of Four Protagonists and Their Creators Jacob Patrick Pride University of Denver Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.du.edu/etd Part of the Continental Philosophy Commons, Literature in English, Anglophone outside British Isles and North America Commons, Literature in English, North America Commons, and the Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons Recommended Citation Pride, Jacob Patrick, "Catholic Literary Theory: The Conditional Existentialism of Four Protagonists and Their Creators" (2017). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 1280. https://digitalcommons.du.edu/etd/1280 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate Studies at Digital Commons @ DU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ DU. For more information, please contact [email protected],[email protected]. Catholic Literary Theory: The Conditional Existentialism of Four Protagonists and their Creators __________ A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of Arts and Humanities University of Denver __________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy __________ by Jacob Patrick Pride June 2017 Advisor: Clark Davis ©Copyright by Jacob Patrick Pride 2017 All Rights Reserved Author: Jacob Patrick Pride Title: Catholic Literary Theory: The Conditional Existentialism of Four Protagonists and their Creators Advisor: Clark Davis Degree Date: June 2017 Abstract According to Catholic literary theory, the novelist, like the Divine Mystery to a certain extent, creates her characters freely and free with the possibility and probability that they may speak against their creator and even finally rebel. This dissertation reflects upon the relative infiniteness of four literary authors—Flannery O’Connor, Mary McCarthy, Walker Percy, and Cormac McCarthy. In the three novels and one imaginative memoir considered in particular, these authors create their existentialist protagonists, who in their turn reflect the conditional existentialism of their creators. This dissertation, thus, seeks to resurrect, with modern sensibilities, the pre-renaissance and renaissance commonplace that the poet is a creator, and to examine how this schema figures into the Catholic belief that man is created in the Divine Mystery’s image without a loss of human freedom. Celebrating this mystery of existence, Catholic literary theory suggests that the Catholic universe is for all at all times, and not only for those who identify themselves as Catholics. The value of this dissertation for the field of literary studies lies in that insofar as the poet and novelist has lost her identity as creating out of love because God, the Divine Mystery, created her out of love, then philosophy, history, theology, and literature, itself, are in mortal danger. This is the appeal that writers like O’Connor and Percy conscientiously make and writers like Mary McCarthy and Cormac McCarthy confirm despite themselves. ii Acknowledgements I would like to dedicate this dissertation to my wife, Caitlin Elizabeth Pride, who married me four years ago and has helped me through both my master’s and doctorate, including editing this dissertation. She has given me two handsome boys: William Robert, my coursework companion, and Charles Joseph, my dissertation buddy. Caitlin, you are the most beautiful woman in the world, and I am blessed to be your husband. I want to acknowledge my dissertation advisor, Clark Davis, and my readers, Brian Kiteley and Scott Howard, as well as my philosophy chair, Sarah Pessin. I look up to you as amazing teachers and erudite scholars. Thank you to my brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, and in-laws. I am grateful to my parents Robert and Carol for handing down my Catholic faith and love of learning. Thank you to the Alleluia Community School, Ave Maria University, Mount St. Mary’s Seminary, the Fellowship of Catholic University Students, Georgia Southern University, and the University of Denver for the faith and formation you have given me. Most of all, thank you Lord for the grace of the sacraments, the beauty of literature, and the goodness in all that you have made: My Love, the mountains, The lonely wooded valleys, The strange islands, The rivers resounding, The whistling of the wind Love-abounding, The peaceful night, The time of dawn arising, The hushed music, The solitude sounding, A supper that creates and recreates. ~St. John of the Cross, Spiritual Canticle (13-14); translation is my own. iii Table of Contents Chapter One: An Introduction to Catholic Literary Theory ............................................... 1 Divine Mimesis ....................................................................................................... 3 The Communion of Philosophy, Theology, and Literature .................................. 14 Poetry as Playful Participation in the Sublime ..................................................... 20 The Via Pulchritudinis .......................................................................................... 27 Some Notes on this Dissertational Structure ........................................................ 30 Chapter Two: Flannery O’Connor, Hazel Motes, and Other Characters .......................... 35 O’Connor’s Literary Catholicism ......................................................................... 37 The Character of O’Connor’s Characters ............................................................. 45 The Horror of O’Connor’s Catholic Tendencies .................................................. 56 The Hubris of Hazel Motes ................................................................................... 63 The Redemption of Hazel Motes .......................................................................... 68 Interchapter Three: The Heart of Catholicism ...................................................... 72 Chapter Three: The Hubris of Mary McCarthy in Memories of a Catholic Girlhood ..... 79 McCarthy’s Memories as Anti-Catholic Confession ............................................ 83 James Joyce’s Portrait and the Catholic Sacraments ........................................... 89 Philosophy, History, and Poetry in Memories .................................................... 103 McCarthy’s Novel Ideas ..................................................................................... 108 The Jewish Presence in Memories ...................................................................... 115 Interchapter Two: Russian Literature as a Model ............................................... 124 Chapter Four: Walker Percy and Leisure in The Moviegoer .......................................... 130 The Existential Atheism of Uncle Will and Aunt Emily .................................... 133 Bolling’s Impoverished Catholicism .................................................................. 137 Sloth in the Modern Age of Old Evil .................................................................. 146 Faith and Reason in Catholic Fiction .................................................................. 157 Ennui, Leisure, and the Little Way ..................................................................... 163 Interchapter One: Existentialism and Catholic Literature .................................. 172 Chapter Five: Cormac McCarthy’s Child of God without God ...................................... 177 A Child of God…Perhaps ................................................................................... 179 Words, Words, Words ......................................................................................... 188 The Assumption of McCarthy’s Catholicism ..................................................... 193 Ballard’s Precursors: The Monk and The Underground Man ............................ 201 The Scatology in McCarthy’s Eschatology ........................................................ 208 Interchapter Zero: Catholic Literature Now & Beyond ...................................... 218 On Being Drawn: Some Final Thoughts ......................................................................... 225 Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 233 iv Chapter One: An Introduction to Catholic Literary Theory “We will begin, then, with the creation of the world and with God its Maker, for the first fact that you must grasp is this: the renewal of creation has been wrought by the Self-same Word Who made it in the beginning. There is thus no inconsistency between creation and salvation.” ~St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation (26) Let us, then, begin with the authors Flannery O’Connor and Walker Percy, who living from almost the beginning of the twentieth century to almost its end devoted themselves to awakening Catholic literary theory particularly in the modern American South. Establishing a Catholic literary presence in provincial pockets was not their end, neither in the sense of their true purpose nor their final dissolution. They believed that Catholic literary theory needed to be further developed in light of Catholic theology, so that works of fiction, especially novels by Catholic authors, could continue to be properly discussed in academic settings. O’Connor and Percy, as well as Mary McCarthy
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