The Question of Justice in the Novel of Consciousness: Marilynne Robinson’s Lila
Marilynne Robinson’s achievement in the third novel of the Iowa trilogy can be seen more clearly if measured against Erich Auerbach’s ambivalence about the novel of consciousness. Using Auerbach’s final chapter of Mimesis, on Virginia Woolf, as the horizon for Robinson’s work clarifies two points: R...
| Published in: | Religion and the arts |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Brill
[2020]
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| In: |
Religion and the arts
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| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Robinson, Marilynne 1944-, Lila
/ Stream of consciousness
/ Exchange of experience
/ Justice
/ Auerbach, Erich 1892-1957, Mimesis
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| RelBib Classification: | AD Sociology of religion; religious policy AG Religious life; material religion XA Law |
| Further subjects: | B
Exchange
B Justice B Robinson B Calvin B Auerbach B Novel of Consciousness B Woolf |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | Marilynne Robinson’s achievement in the third novel of the Iowa trilogy can be seen more clearly if measured against Erich Auerbach’s ambivalence about the novel of consciousness. Using Auerbach’s final chapter of Mimesis, on Virginia Woolf, as the horizon for Robinson’s work clarifies two points: Robinson’s work should be viewed within a novel-of-consciousness tradition that is as much European as American; and Robinson’s religious interests turn that tradition toward a more anthropological concern with the complexity of consciousness framed by the concern for justice. While Nicholas Damas’s recent essay in The Atlantic, “The New Fiction of Solitude” (April 2016), claimed that much new fiction “imagines teaching us how to be separate” and Walter Benjamin already wrote at mid-century that “the ability to exchange experiences” disappeared sometime after World War I, in Lila it is as if Marilynne Robinson set out to show both the difficulty and the possibilities of such exchange. |
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| ISSN: | 1568-5292 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Religion and the arts
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1163/15685292-02401004 |