 |
|
     |
|
|
|
Robert Pogue Harrison, The Dominion of the Dead. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003. 208 p.
Tradition, Chesterton remarked, is the "democracy of the dead." For Robert Pogue Harrison, Rosina Pierotti Professor in Italian Literature at Stanford University, this form of democracy at least is inescapable. In The Dominion of the Dead, Harrison meditates on how "our basic human institutions - religion, matrimony, burial, if one goes along with Giambattista Vico, but also law, language, literature" gifts from "those who came before." We bury the dead, giving them a future, so that "they may give us a past." And in giving us a past, the dead "help us go forward." We bury the dead so that natural death is turned to culture, and to "humanize the ground" beneath our cultural worlds. Near the center of the book, he sets Walter Pater's argument that Roman Christianity fulfilled the hopes of pagan epicureanism against Nietzsche's complaint that Christianity rests on a denial of life. Pater comes out the better for the debate. Harrison meditates on the fundamental cultural challenge posed by the empty tomb: "Where the dead are simply dead, the living are in some sense already dead as well. Conversely, where the afterlife of the dead receives new life, the earth as a whole receives a new blessing." More a meditation than an argument, this is a subtle and enchanting book, one to be savored.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, June 14, 2005 at 11:42 PM
Permission is given to use material on this site, provided the source is cited, blog entries are republished in full, and the author is notified in advance.
1 & 2 Kings
Brazos Theological Commentary
The Promise Of His Appearing: An Exposition Of Second Peter
A Great Mystery: Fourteen Wedding Sermons
Deep Comedy: Trinity, Tragedy, And Hope In Western Literature
Miniatures & Morals: The Christian Novels of Jane Austen
The Priesthood of the Plebs: A Theology of Baptism
A Son To Me: An Exposition of 1 & 2 Samuel
From Silence to Song: The Davidic Liturgical Revolution
Ascent to Love: A Guide to Dante's Divine Comedy
Blessed Are the Hungry: Meditations on the Lord's Supper
A House For My Name: A Survey of the Old Testament
Heroes of the City of Man: A Christian Guide to Select Ancient Literature
Brightest Heaven of Invention: A Christian Guide To Six Shakespeare Plays
Wise Words: Family Stories That Bring the Proverbs to Life
The Kingdom and the Power: Rediscovering the Centrality of the Church
