Catholic Literary Giants: A Field Guide to the Catholic Literary Landscape

By Joseph Pearce

Book Overview

In Catholic Literary Giants, Joseph Pearce takes the reader on a dazzling tour of the creative landscape of Catholic prose and poetry. Covering the vast and impressive terrain from Dante to Tolkien, from Shakespeare to Waugh, this book is an immersion into the spiritual depths of the Catholic literary tradition with one of today's premier literary biographers as our guide.

Focusing especially on the literary revival of the twentieth century, Pearce explores well-known authors such as G.K. Chesterton, Graham Greene and J.R.R. Tolkien, while introducing lesser-known writers Roy Campbell, Maurice Baring, Owen Barfield and others. He even includes the new saint, Pope John Paul II, who wrote many literary and poetic pieces, among them the story that was made into a feature film, The Jeweler's Shop.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1586179446
• ISBN13: 9781586179441
• Release Date: September 2014
• Publisher: Ignatius Press
• Length: 425 Pages
• Weight: 1.36 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

A very useful landscape

Please excuse me my bad English; I can read well but it's difficult for me to write. In spite of this, I am very pleased to comment this book, so interesting for me as all the Pearce's things. This book in particular permitted me to read a lot of otherwise out of my reach articles, published in magazines, etc. It's so a broad vision of the more important authors of the literary catholic revival in last century, with some pleasant surprises, such as the intelligent observations about one of the Beatles!!!, that much increased the interest and respect for Pearce in my elder son. I am really delighted.

A scholarly account that balances critical insight with an understanding of the life and history of

British author and literary biographer Joseph Pearce applies his talents in Literary Giants Literary Catholics, an examination of the lives, works, and creativity of numerous authors of Catholic prose and poetry, including G. K. Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc, Maisie Ward, John Seymour and many others. Of especial note are the multiple essays concerning J. R. R. Tolkien, one of which seeks to answer the question: would Tolkien have given Peter Jackson's "The Lord of the Rings" movie the thumbs-up? A measured and scholarly account that balances critical insight with an understanding of the life and history of each author scrutinized, recommended for college library and literary criticism shelves.

Essays on Literary Catholics.

_Literary Giants, Literary Catholics_, published by Ignatius Press, by the traditional Catholic convert and apologist Joseph Pearce, consists of essays on a variety of topics dealing with Catholic culture and the primary literary figures involved in the Catholic revival which were originally published in various journals and especially in the _Saint Austin Review_. These essays focus on Catholic writers and thinkers who incorporated their Catholic beliefs into their art and writings and sought to defend the tradition of the Church against modernity. Joseph Pearce, a convert to Catholicism, regards himself to be a "cultural apologist" as opposed to a theologian or an apologist who relies strictly on rational arguments to defend the faith. This book covers a wide variety of topics all dealing with the Catholic literary revival. The book begins by discussing this revival among the Victorians including the romantic movement influenced by Coleridge and Woodsworth, the traditionalist revolution in Anglicanism led by Cardinal Newman (who eventually converted to Roman Catholicism), and the art of the pre-Raphaelites. In addition, the Catholic revival came to effect the Decadents, who sought God in their own way as a means to overcome sin by facing the darkness, including Baudelaire, Huysmans, and Wilde (all of whom converted to Catholicism). Throughout this discussion, the relationship between tradition and conversion is explained. Pearce also discusses the role of tradition in modern English literature including T. S. Eliot, Evelyn Waugh, and Siegfried Sassoon. The second section of this book is devoted to essays featuring the apologetic duo, Hilaire Belloc and G. K. Chesterton (nicknamed "the Chesterbelloc" by George Bernard Shaw). Pearce shows how Roman Catholicism came to play an important part in the life of Chesterton who eventually converted. The writings of Belloc and Chesterton are both highly apologetic in nature and both focus on the economic theory of distributism, based on the social teachings of the Catholic church. Distributism provides a third way alternative to the excesses of both socialism and capitalism and is in agreement with the encyclical _Rerum Novarum_ of Pope Leo XIII. Pearce presents several interesting essays focusing on both Chesterton and Belloc, including an essay where he argues that both would oppose the modern European Union (contrary to the suggestion of another writer) and in which he exonerates Chesterton of the fascism smear (distributism being fundamentally and diametrically opposed to fascist statism). Essays on Maurice Baring, R. H. Benson, Maisie Ward, and John Seymour are also presented. The third section of this book deals with "the wasteland", particularly the aftermath of the First World War and the despair which followed. Pearce discusses poets who opposed the horrors of mass warfare including Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen. Pearce also discusses the modernism versus traditionalism at