Spacious Joy - An Essay in Phenomenology and Literature

J.L. Chretien is a French public intellectual, philosopher and poet, widely published and revered in his home country and in academic circles worldwide. This translation makes his work available to an English-language audience for the first time and a crucial contribution to our understanding of the phenomenology of religious experience.

List of contents

Translator's Note
Introduction: Spaciousness, Joy, and the Legacy of the Word "Dilation"
Chapter One: St. Augustine and the Wide Offshore of Desire
Chapter Two: St. Gregory the Great: Amplitude Within a Narrow Confinement
Chapter Three: The Dilated Runners of Psalm 118, from Henri Michaux to St. Teresa
Chapter Four: Mystical Dilations
Chapter Five: Bossuet on the Open Roads
Chapter Six: Amiel and the Pathology of Dilation
Chapter Seven: Return to Eden with Thomas Traherne
Chapter Eight: Whitman, Voyager Without Limits
Chapter Nine: Paul Claudel's Cosmic Respiration
Further Reading

About the author

J.L. Chretien is a French philosopher and poet. He is currently Professor of Philosophy at the University of Paris, Sorbonne. He has published 30 books in French and received the Prix du Cardinal Lustiger from the Académie française in 2012 for his philosophical work.

Product details

• Authors: J. L. Chretien, J.L. Chretien
• Assisted by: Davenport Anne Ashley (Translation)
• Publisher: Bloomsbury
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 15.03.2019
• EAN: 9781786610560
• ISBN: 978-1-78661-056-0
• Dimensions: 162 mm x 230 mm x 21 mm
• Weight: 494 g
• Subjects: Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Philosophy: general, reference works; PHILOSOPHY / Movements / Phenomenology, LITERARY CRITICISM / Comparative Literature, PHILOSOPHY / Movements / Existentialism, Comparative Literature, Literature: history & criticism, Phenomenology & Existentialism, Phenomenology and Existentialism