Sacred texts: Nature, context and pedagogy.

Abstract

This dissertation addresses the concept of the sacred and how the sacred might be expressed through literary works. While acknowledging the existence of authorial sacred texts, like the Bible, I am arguing that there are additional sites for expressing the sacred. Drawing primarily on works of the Western tradition, given that my realm of experience is Christian, I nonetheless aim to set a groundwork for determining the nature of sacred texts which can be expanded and adapted cross-culturally. In an attempt to broaden the range of sacred texts beyond the immediate affiliation with the canonical works, I have drawn upon anthropological perspectives, chiefly Roy Rappaport's discussion in "The Obvious Aspects of Ritual." The definition advanced, which becomes central to my thesis, suggests that the sacred is one component of the larger category, the Holy. The sacred is the discursive element and, particularly in liturgy and ritual allows for the expression of postulates which are non-verifiable and non-falsifiable. Given this emphasis on the sacred as discursive, I assert that literary works can be sacred. I present three chief ways of considering the "sacral" status attributed to certain texts. Using the Aeneid I demonstrate that sacred texts arise from community affirmation, particularly when the texts express the paradoxical and incommensurate realities of the human community. The Rule of St. Benedict exemplifies the ritual and juridical aspects that help identify sacred texts, working as Benedict's text does to regulate and sacralize time. The third text, The Four Quartets, serves as a model for identifying features of texts as sacred. My particular focus is on the capacity of poetic language to signify multivalently; again such texts arguably express realities that are inexpressible by any other medium. The final chapter offers a pedagogy for a course in Sacred Texts of Literature, including a syllabus and schema for teaching works ranging from Julian of Norwich's Showings to Walker Percy's The Moviegoer. I have not developed the definitive description of sacred texts; the dissertation, however, has identified the complexity of determining the constitution and nature of sacred texts while affirming the importance of the sacred to human thought.