Goodness and the literary imagination : Harvard Divinity School's 95th Ingersoll Lecture : with essays on Morrison's moral and religious vision

The Resource Goodness and the literary imagination : Harvard Divinity School's 95th Ingersoll Lecture : with essays on Morrison's moral and religious vision
Label
Goodness and the literary imagination : Harvard Divinity School's 95th Ingersoll Lecture : with essays on Morrison's moral and religious vision
Title remainder
Harvard Divinity School's 95th Ingersoll Lecture : with essays on Morrison's moral and religious vision
Statement of responsibility
Toni Morrison ; edited by Davڳid Carrasco, Stephanie Paulsell, and Mara Willard
Title variation
  • Harvard Divinity School's 95th Ingersoll Lecture : with essays on Morrison's moral and religious vision
  • With essays on Morrison's moral and religious vision
Contributor
Author
Editor
Subject
Genre
Language
eng
Summary
"What exactly is goodness? Where is it found in the literary imagination? Toni Morrison, one of American letters' greatest voices, pondered these perplexing questions in her celebrated Ingersoll Lecture, delivered at Harvard University in 2012 and published now for the first time in book form. Perhaps because it is overshadowed by the more easily defined evil, goodness often escapes our attention. Recalling many literary examples, from Ahab to Coetzee's Michael K, Morrison seeks the essence of goodness and ponders its significant place in her writing. She considers the concept in relation to unforgettable characters from her own works of fiction and arrives at conclusions that are both eloquent and edifying. In a lively interview conducted for this book, Morrison further elaborates on her lecture's ideas, discussing goodness not only in literature but in society and history--particularly black history, which has responded to centuries of brutality with profound creativity. Morrison's essay is followed by a series of responses by scholars in the fields of religion, ethics, history, and literature to her thoughts on goodness and evil, mercy and love, racism and self-destruction, language and liberation, together with close examination of literary and theoretical expressions from her works. Each of these contributions, written by a scholar of religion, considers the legacy of slavery and how it continues to shape our memories, our complicities, our outcries, our lives, our communities, our literature, and our faith. In addition, the contributors engage the religious orientation in Morrison's novels so that readers who encounter her many memorable characters such as Sula, Beloved, or Frank Money will learn and appreciate how Morrison's notions of goodness and mercy also reflect her understanding of the sacred and the human spirit"--Publisher's website
Member of
Cataloging source
YDX
Dewey number
813/.54
Illustrations
illustrations
Index
index present
LC call number
  • PS3563.O8749
  • PS3563.O8749
LC item number
  • Z6535 2019
  • G664 2019
Literary form
non fiction
Nature of contents
bibliography
Series statement
The Ingersoll lecture
Series volume
2012

Context

Context of Goodness and the literary imagination : Harvard Divinity School's 95th Ingersoll Lecture : with essays on Morrison's moral and religious vision

Work of

Structured data from the Bibframe namespace is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License by DC Public Library System. Additional terms may apply to data associated with third party namespaces.