Welcome to the site. I hope the material found here will be interesting & helpful, & make the course more enjoyable for you.
At the top of the page you’ll find links to the different pages containing this-&-that, including information on course assignments. On the left of each page you’ll find links to interesting & informative sites that relate to the material we cover in class.
The icon of the Trinity by Andrei Rublev, c. 1410
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AIMS OF THE COURSE
The following serves as a sort of thesis for the course:
In its many forms art offers us an invitation to see in & through nature—including the materials, shapes, & details of the visual arts, the characters, events, & language of the literary arts, drama, & film, the choreographed movements of dance, the sounds & textures of music, etc.—mysteries which ultimately transcend nature. Flannery O’Connor captures the Catholic aesthetic when she wrote that the “main concern of the fiction writer is with mystery as it is incarnated in human life.” She also wrote that Catholics novelists should see anagogically, which encourages them & their readers to discern the extraordinary in the ordinary & to recognize that we live in a universe in which “the natural world contains the supernatural.” This means they have an artistic obligation to portray the concrete details of life with skill & insight. Failure to to so, whether because of laziness, lack of talent, or because they are using fiction as a means to promote piety or grand ideas, ultimately compromises their art. It also calls into question the integrity of the faith, for “those who see clearly that our judgment (as Catholic artists) is false in matters of art cannot be blamed for suspecting our judgment in matters of religion.” In this course students will be asked to consider not only this incarnational logic & its implications for reading fiction, watching films, & engaging the visual arts, but also the sources & motivations of the creative impulse, & to think through the claim that because we bear the image & likeness of a God who creates, we have an inherent desire to mimic God in our own acts of creation.
This course is also intended to help students understand Catholic teaching on the arts, to appreciate the many roles the arts have played in the life of faith, & to encourage them to enter more deeply into the life of the imagination that gives birth to literature, film, painting, music, architecture, & the other forms of art. Ultimately, art raises theological questions about God, beauty, creation, Incarnation, & the sacramental nature of human creativity, something the theologian Trevor Hart points out in the following quote:
“Responsible creativity of an artistic sort is thus not only warranted, but may be viewed as an unconditional obligation laid upon us & called forth by God’s gracious speaking to humankind in the life, death & resurrection of his Son. Indeed we may go further, & suggest that it is not only a proper response to, but also an active sharing in (albeit in a distinct & entirely subordinate creaturely mode) God’s own creative activity within the cosmos.”
The arts are thus not merely diversionary activities with little relation to our pursuit of truth but a faithful response to God’s creative & redemptive work, & are one of the ways we participate in his great reclamation project begun with the calling of Abraham & fulfilled in Christ. We deny this great calling & opportunity when we either distort the natural creative impulse within us to serve selfish ends, or convince ourselves that participation in the arts is a waste of time. To suggest to most people today, including Catholics, that the arts are meant to lead us to a deeper participation in goodness, truth, & beauty is to be met with incomprehension, if not scorn. Such a response indicates the continuing success of the forces arrayed against God & his faithful in keeping people focused on anything but the source & fulfillment of human creativity. By contemplating works of human nobility & genius, the Church believes that we can contribute to the success of the rescue movement initiated by God through Christ & his Church & invites all people to consider the power & attraction of the arts.
HENRY OSSAWA TURNER, “The Annunciation”
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In this spirit of honoring God’s work in Christ, which continues in the Church & through the voices, literal & figurative, of artists, I’m posting this prayer (shamelessly grabbed from another site). I’ll broaden the meaning, taking for “literary revival” a revival in all the arts God has blessed us with.
PRAYER FOR A CATHOLIC LITERARY REVIVAL
O, Jesus, Who said, “heaven and earth shall pass away, but my Word shall not pass,” You are the Living and Eternal Word through Whom all that exists was made and is sustained. You delighted in proclaiming the Good News of the Kingdom by means of stories.
Through the intercession of Mary Most Holy, St. Joseph (Your guardian , Mary’s chaste spouse, and protector of Christ’s faithful), St. Francis de Sales (patron of Catholic writers), Cardinal John Henry Newman (patron of Catholic essayists and novelists), Pope John Paul II the Great (patron of Catholic poets, artists, playwrights, and personalists), and all the holy men and women throughout the ages who have spread the Kingdom of Goodness, Truth and Beauty by means of words and images, we ask You humbly but confidently for the graces we need to contribute to a renewed culture of beauty (in service of love and life), including a Catholic literary revival, for our times.
1. Our Father
2. Hail Mary
3. Glory Be
Jesus, Eternal Beauty, we trust in You.
Most Holy Trinity, have mercy on us and on the whole world. Amen.
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WILLIAM BLAKE, “Ancient of Days”
