ere is the highest and most complete expression of the artist, thus the emotion has become flesh in words.” Thus, the student can follow this metaphor of incarnation to its source in theology and perhaps in human experience of the incarnation of the Word in the first chapter of the Gospel of John. Studies of literature and theology have shown that the literature of ultimate Mystery includes not only this metaphor of incarnation but also archetypes of the journey, the cosmic battle, the mystical marriage, the transformation story, cosmic organicism, and silence.
If reading literature can bring alive the transformative journey of readers toward meaning of words and the Word, then there is deep resonance for us in the words of Glenn Arbery: “Literature matters because nothing can better approach the form . . . of life in its felt reality, as it is most deeply experienced, with an intelligence that increases in power the more it explores the unbearable dimensions of joy and suffering. Without being specifically religious in itself, [literature] can give an experience of ‘a common glory’ that intimates something otherwise unsayable about the nature of the Word through whom all things are made.”
David Leigh, SJ is professor of English at Seattle University, where he teaches British literature and theology, and coordinates faculty development programs. He has published two books: Circuitous Journeys: Modern Spiritual Autobiography (2000) and Apocalypse in Twentieth-Century Fiction (2008).