The Making and Unmaking of History: Secular and Sacramental Approaches
This paper shows how David Jones's sacramental understanding of man and world informs his, and may inform our, approach to history. For Jones, the history of "man the maker" is a history of "making other." History is not only something done, but also something made; not only...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Dep.
2017
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| In: |
Religion & literature
Year: 2017, Volume: 49, Issue: 1, Pages: 111-121 |
| RelBib Classification: | CD Christianity and Culture KAJ Church history 1914-; recent history NBE Anthropology NBP Sacramentology; sacraments |
| Further subjects: | B
Secularism in literature
B ARTHURIAN legend B SACRAMENTS in literature B Literary style B JONES, David, 1895-1974 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | This paper shows how David Jones's sacramental understanding of man and world informs his, and may inform our, approach to history. For Jones, the history of "man the maker" is a history of "making other." History is not only something done, but also something made; not only a thing handed down, but also a thing "handed over" as anathemata; and it entails encountering the past "under the form" of the present. Hence it is a matter both for anamnesis and poiesis. The challenge for present makers, artists and poets, is to give newness to old forms: "Our images, not only our ideas, must be valid now" ("The Arthurian Legend"). The paper shows how this sacramental approach is in tension with a progressive understanding of history, with its emphasis on universal principles or rights. For Jones, "no possession of civic, economic or political rights...can compensate for the absence of creativity" ("Art and Democracy"). This approach is of great relevance today, the paper argues, in conditions that have been described as "a culture of repudiation." Jones alerts us, in the "Preface" to The Anathemata and elsewhere, to the danger of both language and practices losing their moorings in the matter of an inherited culture. This, then, is our task as makers and humans: "To conserve, to develop, to bring together, to make significant for the present what the past holds.. .saying always: 'of these thou hast given me have I lost none'" ("The Myth of Arthur"). |
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| ISSN: | 2328-6911 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Religion & literature
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