‘The Earth no Longer a Void’: Creation Theology in the Novels of Charlotte Brontë
In Charlotte Brontë’s novels, the Eden myth represents both a fullness of experience from which the protagonist is separated by the Fall and the potential for recreation by an act of the secular will or the eschatological intervention of God. This article examines the use of Eden as an attempt to im...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
|
| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Oxford University Press
2011
|
| In: |
Literature and theology
Year: 2011, Volume: 25, Issue: 3, Pages: 237-251 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (JSTOR) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | In Charlotte Brontë’s novels, the Eden myth represents both a fullness of experience from which the protagonist is separated by the Fall and the potential for recreation by an act of the secular will or the eschatological intervention of God. This article examines the use of Eden as an attempt to impose narrative closure and its disruption by eschatological texts that insist that such closure is achievable only by an act of the divine will. Eden provides imaginative space for the development of a feminine theology of creation embodied in the figure of Eve, but it is only in Villette that Brontë is able to construct an ending that liberates her protagonist from the structural archetype of Edenic return. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 1477-4623 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Literature and theology
|
| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1093/litthe/frr023 |