The book is a an insightful record of the presence of Christian themes, motifs and inspirations in Western literature and culture across the centuries. Its underlying assumption is the classical idea if mimesis which views literature as a mirror reflecting reality, where the concept of reality is significantly broadened to include not only physical and material reality, but also psychological and spiritual. The latter, focused on metaphysical dimension of human existence and man’s interior life with its manifestations in religion, is the proper subject matter of the thirteen essays making up the volume Perichoresis: the Mirrors of Literature and Christianity, which underscores mutual coinherence, or mutual indwelling, of various forms of literary expression on the one hand, and individual or collective experience of Christianity on the other. The essays present various ways in which Christianity has been lived and experienced across hundreds of years from the Middle Ages till the twentieth-century. Their themes range from fascinating adventures in the world of medieval chivalry, or the darkness of possession with evil; through the impact of the Christian thought on the shape of Europe, Christian influence on education and the upbringing of the young, or prophetic voices warning society about moral dangers; to the accounts of the most intimate encounters and never-ending human inner struggles with God. Thus the book calls attention to literature as a rich in figurative language and aesthetically pleasing mirror reflecting the world permeated with the Christian spirit. Language is central to both: it points to the Word of God as Logos, and it employs the words of literary art which constitute the material for the craft of writers and poets.
LanguagePolish
Title in EnglishPerichoresis: the Mirrors of Literature and Christianity