Browsing by Subject "Vocation."
Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
Results Per Page
Sort Options
Item Evelyn Waugh and la nouvelle théologie.(2014-06-11) Makowsky, Dan Reid.; Wood, Ralph C.; English.; Baylor University. Dept. of English.This dissertation seeks to provide a more profound study of Evelyn Waugh’s relation to twentieth-century Catholic theology than has yet been attempted. In doing so, it offers a radical revision of our understanding of Waugh’s relation to the Second Vatican Coucil. Waugh’s famous contempt for the liturgical reforms of the early 1960s, his self-described “intellectual” conversion, and his identification with the Council of Trent, have all contributed to a commonplace perception of Waugh as a reactionary Catholic stridently opposed to reform. However, careful attention to Waugh’s dynamic artistic concerns and the deeply sacramental theology implicit in his later fiction reveals a striking resemblance to the most important Catholic theological reform movement of the mid-twentieth century: la nouvelle théologie. By comparing Waugh’s artistic project to the theology of the Nouvelle theologians, who advocated the recovery of a fundamentally sacramental theology, this dissertation demonstrates that the two mirror one another in many of their basic concerns. This mirroring was no mere coincidence. Waugh’s long-time mentor Father Martin D’Arcy was steeped in many of the same sacramentally-minded thinkers as the Nouvelle theologians. Through D’Arcy’s theological influence as well as the deepening of Waugh’s own faith, he, too, developed a sacramental cast of mind. In reading some of the key works of Waugh’s later years, I will show how Waugh realized this sacramental outlook in his art. Ultimately, this dissertation argues that Waugh’s main contribution to the renewal of sacramental thought within Catholicism lies in his portrayal of personal vocation as the remedy for acedia, or sloth, which he considered the “besetting sin” of the age. Moreover, this dissertation also seeks to demonstrate how Waugh’s increasingly sacramental outlook shaped the aesthetic characteristics of his later work. What ultimately becomes apparent is that Waugh’s place within twentieth century Catholicism has been misunderstood: far from being a reflexive reactionary, Waugh championed the same profoundly sacramental vision of reality as the Nouvelle theologians, that which was later adopted and articulated by the Second Vatican Council.Item Jack Clemo's vocation to evangelical poetry and erotic marriage : an examination of his poems of personal tribute and critique.(2011-01-05T19:42:28Z) Martin, Heather R. (Heather Rattray); Wood, Ralph C.; English.; Baylor University. Dept. of English.Jack Clemo, whose dates are 1916-1994, calls to us from the margins: a working-class voice from deep within in the china clayworks of Cornwall, having been educated outside the conventional system, contending with deafness and blindness for most of his life; a believer whose fierce Evangelical non-conformist religiosity was at odds with an increasingly secularized Britain; a poet who, insisting that his art serve God no less than the world, embraced the erotic as a necessary component of Christian faith and life; and thus a man whose yearning for both marital and poetic companionship is as heartfelt as it is unyielding. Clemo believed he had a divine calling to be an evangelical poet and a married man: a dual vocation that seemed impossible given his physical, social, and educational limits. In the process of fulfilling that vocation, which he did despite poverty, blindness, and deafness, his poetry often "gives testimony" through the varied artistic and spiritual influences he encountered. These portrait poems and dramatic monologues generally fall into three categories: theologians and preachers, saints and missionaries, and artists and writers. For Clemo, these testimony poems document the verity of the Christian faith that he both aspired to and lived by. The predominant themes that connect these poems are evangelism and marriage, reflecting Clemo's concern with fulfilling his twin vocation. This dissertation concentrates on how Jack Clemo's quest to fulfill his vocation intersects with his dramatic monologues and portrait poems, demonstrating that his aspirations shaped these poems and in turn that these poems helped Clemo to imagine and define what it means to be an evangelical poet and a priest of erotic marriage. He did so by constantly testing his voice against others, writing himself into their lifeworld and allowing them to inhabit his poems. His portraits of actual personages also provide concrete expression of Clemo's evangelical witness to the "good news" and the redemptive possibilities of a Christ-centered marriage. Moreover, these figures, whether they affirmed, challenged, or revised Clemo's vision, offered the poet a way to interact with the world through an artistry of encounter, dialog and imagined community.