Description: This book argues that the literature of the English Reformation marks a turning point in Western thinking about literature and literariness. Victoria Kahn contrasts modern and early modern understandings of the terms, and focuses on the works of Thomas Hobbes, John Milton, Immanuel Kant, Soren Kierkegaard, and J.M. Coetzee.
Review Quotes: "Kahn makes a provocative case for the language arts. A literary education engaging broadly with how beliefs are made stands to offer a genuine alternative to the certainty, self satisfaction, and circular logic shared by political and religious fundamentalists." -- Victor Lenthe, Bilkent University, Journal of British Studies
"Kahn's thesis is presented in a remarkably concise book which offers productive avenues for future thought. Kahn invites us to consider literature as a motive force behind the changing nature, across modernity, of belief itself." -- Tomas Weber, Los Angeles Review of Books