‘Until I Have Given Lueli Back His God’: Queer Religion in Sylvia Townsend Warner’s Mr. Fortune’s Maggot
This article argues that the religious discourse in Sylvia Townsend Warner’s 1927 novel Mr. Fortune’s Maggot encourages a radical rethinking of the queer subject in British modernist literature. It is in three main sections. First, it argues that Timothy Fortune, the novel’s queer main character, ma...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Oxford University Press
2011
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| In: |
Literature and theology
Year: 2011, Volume: 25, Issue: 2, Pages: 157-171 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (JSTOR) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | This article argues that the religious discourse in Sylvia Townsend Warner’s 1927 novel Mr. Fortune’s Maggot encourages a radical rethinking of the queer subject in British modernist literature. It is in three main sections. First, it argues that Timothy Fortune, the novel’s queer main character, makes important decisions in the work, ones that not only intervene into orthodox formulations of religious practice and belief, but also shape him as a queer, desiring man. Second, it shows that because Fortune’s decisions affect both his belief system and that of Lueli, his pagan companion, they evince the queer subject constructing his own form of religious knowledge. Third, it claims that Townsend Warner, by narrating a queer subject emancipated from determinate belief systems, effectively creates what, in deconstructive terms, is a ‘religion without religion’, or an apophatic approach that rejects the closure of determinate belief systems. |
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| ISSN: | 1477-4623 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Literature and theology
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1093/litthe/frq057 |