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This collection of essays analyzes global depictions of the devil from theological, Biblical, and literary perspectives, spanning the late Middle Ages to the 21st century. The chapters explore demonic representations in the literary works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Dante Alighieri, Charles Baudelaire, John Milton, H.P. Lovecraft, and Cormac McCarthy, among others. The text examines other media such as the operas Orfeo and Erminia sul Giordano and the television shows Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, and Mad Men.
The Hermeneutics of Hell, featuring an international set of established and up-and-coming authors, masterfully examines the evolution of the devil from the Biblical accounts of the Middle Ages to the individualized presence of the modern world.
List of contents
1 Introduction: The Devil You Know and the Devils You Don't Know.- 2 Two Brass Mites of the Widow : Saint Bridget of Sweden and the Terrors of Hell.- 3 The Uses of Tentatio: Satan, Luther, and Theological Maturation.- 4 As an Angel of Light: Satanic Rhetoric in Early Modern Literature and Theology.- 5 Astrophal redivivus: The Coinage of the Discourse on the Devil in the Early Modern Age in Georg Bernardt SJ's Tundalus redivivus (1622).- 6 The Drama of Hell: Sources and Interpretation in 17th Century Operatic Infernal Scenes.- 7 The Dia-bolic Logic of logos Towards a Hermeneutics of Hell in Goethe's Faust.- 8 Literature, Theology, Survival.- 9 Dostoevsky's Demons.- 10 "la manière de Milton": Baudelaire Reads Milton's Satan.- 11 Money as the Devil in B. Traven's "Assembly Line" and Its Sources in Scripture, the Faust Legend, and New England Puritanism.- 12 Visions of Hell in Flannery O'Connor.- 13 "He Haunts One for Hours Afterwards": Demonic Dissonance in Milton's Satan and Lovecraft's Nyarlathotep.- 14 "The One Who Knocks:" Milton's Lucifer and the American Tragic Character.- 15 Reading the devil in the landscape.- 16 A Landscape of the Damned: Evil and Nothingness in Cormac McCarthy's Outer Dark.
About the author
Gregor Thuswaldner is Dean of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Humanities at North Park University in Chicago. He earned his PhD from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in North Carolina, USA. His most recent book publications include a translation of Felix Mitterer's play Jägerstätter (with Robert Dassanowsky, 2015) and the essay collection Making Sacrifices: Visions of Sacrifice in European and American Cultures (with Nicholas Brooks, 2016).
L. Daniel Russ is former Academic Dean and Professor of English at Gordon College, Executive Director of Christians in the Visual Arts, Headmaster of Trinity Christian Academy, and Managing Director of the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture. He earned his PhD from the University of Dallas in Texas, USA. He is a Fellow of the Dallas Institute, a Senior Fellow of The Trinity Forum, and a Senior Fellow of The Alexandrian Forum. He is the author of Flesh-and-Blood Jesus: Learning to be Fully Human from the Son of Man.
Summary
This collection of essays analyzes global depictions of the devil from theological, Biblical, and literary perspectives, spanning the late Middle Ages to the 21st century. The chapters explore demonic representations in the literary works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Dante Alighieri, Charles Baudelaire, John Milton, H.P. Lovecraft, and Cormac McCarthy, among others. The text examines other media such as the operas Orfeo and Erminia sul Giordano and the television shows Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, and Mad Men.
The Hermeneutics of Hell, featuring an international set of established and up-and-coming authors, masterfully examines the evolution of the devil from the Biblical accounts of the Middle Ages to the individualized presence of the modern world.
