This book is an interdisciplinary study of Romanticism which focuses on the reception of the Biblical canon in poetry, art and theory. The Bible is acknowledged as the heart of European culture, but as its status as the sacred text of Judaism and Christianity becomes questionable, it remains at the turning-point between sacred and secular art in the modern world. The insights of Romanticism are crucial for our understanding of postmodernism as a fundamentally religious movement which acknowledges both the death and rebirth of religious language.

DAVID JASPER is a Reader in Literature and Theology in the University of Glasgow. He holds degrees in English Literature and Theology from the Universities of Cambridge, Oxford and Durham. The founding Director of the Centre for the Study of Literature, Theology and the Arts, he is Editor of the Macmillan series Studies in Religion and Literature. The author of five earlier books, he has lectured widely in Europe, North America, South Africa and Australia. He is at present Vice Dean of Divinity at the University of Glasgow.

Preface Introduction: Can These Dry Bones Live? 'Mediator Between Old and New World' Living Powers: Sacred and Secular Language Hölderlin and Holy Scripture Light and Darkness: J.M.W. Tuner and the Bible Weltliteratur and the Biblical Critics Matthew Arnold: Between Two Worlds The Death and Rebirth of Religious Language Conclusion: Into the Twentieth Century Further Reading Index