Djuna Barnes and Theology: Melancholy, Body, Theodicy

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Modernism, religion, and queer bodies come together in this study of Djuna Barnes's writings and art. Examining the role of Barness theological imagination in relation to a phenomenology of suffering, joy, and sexed embodiment, this book unfolds an intricate synthesis of theology, psychoanalysis, and narrative theory to interrogate how queerness informs her art. Providing an original contribution to religious and literary theory, Ng develops a neo-ontological account of melancholy in relation to the myth of the Fall and provides a novel framework for understanding comedy and tragedy in relation to the question of theodicy. Presented in light of a large body of new archival evidence, Barness works are also examined for the first time in relation to a wide range of intertextual and intermedial encounters, including the medieval mysticism of Marguerite Porete, Stravinskys music, 16th- and 18th-century engravings by Albrecht Drer and Joseph Ottinger, and French and Russian literature from Baudelaire and Lautramont to Proust and Dostoevsky.

Author Bio

Zhao Ng is currently a non-stipendiary Fellow at the Rothermere American Institute at the University of Oxford, UK. Previous and forthcoming academic articles include work on Djuna Barnes, Andr Breton, Wyndham Lewis, Hegel, Lacan, and Heidegger.