Ironies of Faith: The Laughter at the Heart of Christian Literature Book

Preface     i
Humility & Vision
To Be Pompilia, Not the Fisc: Browning and the Irony of Humility     1
Emptying Ourselves of What We Think We Know     11
Christian Irony and the Image of the Invisible God     19
The Meek Do Inherit the Earth     31
What Is the Meaning of the Turning Years? Virgil's Aeneid     45
The Irony of Time
The Play beyond the Play     61
Time beyond Time: Augustine's Confessions     67
Time and the Body: Dante's Divine Comedy     89
The Fullness of Time: Shakespeare's Tempest     113
Time and the Neighbor: J. R. R. Tolkien's "Leaf, by Niggle"     153
The Irony of Power
The Stone Rejected     175
The Power of Obedience     195
The Power of the Weak: Manzoni's I Promessi Sposi     229
The Irony of Love
Not in the Garden of Epicurus     251
The True Eros     275
A Sonneteer in Love: Spenser's Amoretti     285
Gerard Manley Hopkins and the Dangerous Love of God     305
The Mighty Child
A Meeting of Youth: Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov     325
Wisdom from a Child: Dickens's A Christmas Carol     343
The Child at the End of the Journey: Pearl     367
Conclusion     401
Works Cited     405
Index     409