Metaphorical value in the narrative of a conversion: The sacred and profane memoirs of Captain Charles Ryder in Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
Ordinary language has difficulty transmitting certain spiritual experiences, such as mystical ecstasy or the process of conversion. These experiences, which cannot be expressed in words, and which involve both the spiritual and the corporeal, are called ineffable. But the literary tradition is full...
| 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: |
Taylor & Francis
2023
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| In: |
Church, Communication and Culture
Year: 2023, Volume: 8, Issue: 2, Pages: 167-183 |
| IxTheo Classification: | CB Christian life; spirituality CD Christianity and Culture KAJ Church history 1914-; recent history KDB Roman Catholic Church |
| Further subjects: | B
Brideshead Revisited
B Literary Theory B Metaphor B Conversion |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | Ordinary language has difficulty transmitting certain spiritual experiences, such as mystical ecstasy or the process of conversion. These experiences, which cannot be expressed in words, and which involve both the spiritual and the corporeal, are called ineffable. But the literary tradition is full of examples in which these incommunicable truths are expressed linguistically: from St. Augustine to C.S. Lewis, from St. John of the Cross to John Henry Newman, many authors have expressed their mystical or conversion experiences through metaphor. Evelyn Waugh’s novel Brideshead Revisited presents the action of divine grace on the characters, as seen through the eyes of the narrator as he undergoes his conversion. The intention of this article is to discover how the use of metaphor succeeds in expressing the action of divine grace in a conversion, providing important insights into the way poetic language can communicate the ineffable experience of the intimate encounter with divinity. To this end, the article analyses three metaphors of novel, (the twitch upon the thread, the balking horse and the hut collapsing under the avalanche) taking into consideration literary theory and what it says about metaphor. |
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| ISSN: | 2375-3242 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Church, Communication and Culture
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1080/23753234.2023.2239288 |