Much like the practice of theology, the task of developing a Christian poetics will always require qualification and re-evaluation as it seeks to say something meaningful about a subject that is beyond simple categorisation and full comprehension. Even so, the task of thinking through what it means to approach the ‘work of literature’—whether it is the work of the novelist, the critic, or the text itself— in light of Christian belief and practice is, in my opinion, a fundamentally valuable endeavour. It is important in part because (like theology) the subject itself is worth it. Furthermore, to not attempt it would be to miss out on the insights and ways of thinking about literature that do result (even if these are always negotiable). There is a huge amount of potential in the creative, dynamic relationships that exist between the reader, the writer, the text, and the varied traditions, beliefs, and practices that come under the umbrella of Christianity. This is, I think, one of the most exciting things about a Christian poetics—the creative potential.

  Attempting to address the particular challenges of a poetics of prose is itself a rather tricky task. For one thing, there is much overlap between the various forms, genres, themes, and so on of what we would customarily label as ‘poetry’ and ‘prose’. In fact, I would say there is more overlap than not. Novels, for example, might be written in either prose (Robinson’s Gilead) or verse (EBB’s Aurora Leigh), while the genre of fantasy could take the form of a prose novel (Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring) or a verse narrative (Dante’s Divine Comedy). Because of these kinds of overlap , many of the tasks and challenges of a Christian poetics raised in previous issues of Among Winter Cranes might also be applied to a Christian poetics of prose. To name just a few possibilities: both poetry and prose might explore the relationship between authorship and truth-telling, both might approach literary form in light of theological notions of incarnation or pneumatology, and both might examine how writers grapple with themes of suffering and evil. Given the shared terrain, what special work is there to be done in the realm of prose?

   One answer might be to examine some of the critical stories about prose forms that have predominated in the field of literary studies and to consider how these critical stories might be productively engaged by a Christian poetics. For instance, how might such a poetics engage with the concerns of the realist novel—a form that has, for many decades, been considered by literary critics to be fundamentally secular? We might, with Mark Knight, bring a theological lens to bear on the realist novel’s form in order to identify the ways in which it was shaped by evangelicalism.¹ Or, with Susan E. Colón, we might bring two prose forms—the parable and the realist novel—into conversation in order to highlight the ways in which ‘narrative puts the theological and ethical in productive tension.’²

   Considering questions of literary narrative in light of Christianity raises all sorts of possibilities, not only for readings of narrative structure (for instance, how understandings of Christian eschatology might inform or challenge the shape of a novel), but also, as Colón points out, in terms of ethics. Narrative theology might help us to draw out the ethical concerns or resources of prose fiction, or offer us tools to examine works of life-writing. Readings of both fiction and non-fiction narratives informed by Christian perspectives on ecology or race can raise vital questions about our understanding of the world we inhabit or the kind of world we would like to inhabit. To re-iterate a point that has been made by David Mahan in a previous issue, bringing together Christian poetics and other literary-critical approaches (ecocriticism, feminism, and so on), often afford rich readings of the texts with which we engage.³

   While each generation will have particular concerns and questions as they develop a Christian poetics, considering past writers and scholars who have thought through their work in light of Christianity can offer us resources and conversational starting-points as we think through what a Christian poetics might mean today. For this reason, I would like to turn to the nineteenth-century Scottish writer, theologian, and literary scholar George MacDonald in order to think about a subject that has, increasingly, come to the fore in critical conversations: the relationship between ethics and reading. I am particularly interested in questions about how our methods and habits of reading might shape us as readers and the moral stakes of our reading in relation to the text’s writers (including, odd as it may sound, dead writers). I look to MacDonald as a conversation-partner in beginning to consider some of these questions because his approach to his work as a literary scholar was fundamentally shaped by his Christian theology and, as it happens, also has bearing upon many current concerns in literary studies (including questions about the role of affect in reading, how literary forms might embody or communicate meaning, and so on). In the remainder of this article, I would like to engage with MacDonald’s work in order to examine how his Christian understanding of death/resurrection gave him ways of conceptualising and exploring various ethical concerns related to the practice of reading.

   MacDonald explores the connections between reading and death/resurrection in his essays and fiction, but nowhere more startlingly than in his Gothic fantasy novel, Lilith (1895). In this novel he draws on the Gothic trope of death to depict how the spiritual transformation that takes place via the main character’s ‘death to self’ parallels a development in his reading practice where he must learn to read books not as objects of his whim or selfish desire, but as ‘living’ things. Considering the relationship between reading and death/resurrection in Lilith reveals how fictional explorations of theological ideas can be placed into fruitful and creative dialogue with the concerns of literary studies. In this case, current conversations on post-critical reading and the ethical implications of our reading practices.

   The act of reading has, for MacDonald, the potential to transform the reader spiritually. This transformation is not automatic, but requires a particular kind of engagement with the text: a mode of reading characterised by openness, attention, and a recognition that the text is, in a sense, ‘alive’. The living text is something that might startle, challenge, delight, or awaken something in us. It is, at times, enigmatic and therefore needs to be re-read with an openness to any newness that might present itself.⁴ There is a theological understanding of the relationship between the Holy Spirit and the imagination that undergirds MacDonald’s ideas about the ‘living’ text, but I am less concerned here with delineating the mechanics of MacDonald’s theological understanding of reading than I am with how the idea of reading a ‘living’ text might open up ways of thinking about our own relationship with the text.

   Lilith opens, fittingly, in the library, where we meet the first-person narrator, Vane, a recent Oxford graduate and inheritor of a large estate. While obviously intelligent, Vane is also entitled and impulsive—a privileged young man whose weakness in character is matched by ‘desultory’⁵ reading habits that are far from the ‘close, silent, patient study’ that MacDonald elsewhere advises his students to practice.⁶ Vane’s reading is superficial, driven by his whims and informed by speculation and an interest in esoteric knowledge. His ‘confession’ to his reader about his undisciplined manner of reading indicates his awareness that it verges on the self-indulgent, and yet he shows no inclination to alter his method. What becomes clear as the novel progresses is that his carelessness in reading is reflective of a deeper ethical and spiritual immaturity. After stumbling into another world (which he accesses through his library), Vane is confronted with the ramifications of his mode of reading and finds he must learn to ‘die’ to himself—that is, die to his ego and lack of concern for others—in order to rectify the consequences of his behaviour and return home.

   The links between death/resurrection and reading are drawn out in Vane’s interactions with his guide on the journey in this other world—the enigmatic Mr. Raven, who is able to take the form of a bird or a man. Raven problematises Vane’s self-centred and entitled conception of reality by challenging, amongst other things, the latter’s understanding of books. During one of their first conversations, Vane sees Raven, in his bird form, digging up worms and tossing them into the air, where they are transformed into butterflies. Even without recognising the allusion to Dante,⁷ the image is clearly one of resurrection—a point that is underscored by Raven’s explanation that he performs the service of filling ‘the air full of worms’ in his capacity as sexton of a cemetery.⁸ Later, Raven mentions that he is the ‘librarian’ in the cemetery and explains that sexton and librarian are ‘much the same profession. Except you are a true sexton, books are but dead bodies to you, and a library nothing but a catacomb.’⁹ This echo of MacDonald’s claim about books as potentially-‘living’ conversation-partners is lost on Vane, whose own reading indicates that his books are indeed more like ‘dead’ objects than ‘living’ works that might rise up and require something of him.

   Vane’s confusion about Raven’s dual profession also reflects his inability to recognise death for what it is: the gateway to resurrection and transformation. As a privileged young man, Vane has not made a habit of ‘dying’ to himself for the sake of others—even those little ‘deaths’ of selfless action that might lead to the good of another or oneself. Indeed, his lack of humility and care is evident in his disapproval of Raven’s work resurrecting worms into butterflies, telling Raven ‘No creature should be allowed to forget what and where it came from […] Because it will grow proud, and cease to recognise its superiors.’¹⁰ When Vane eventually gets to Raven’s ‘library’, he finds not books, but rows of couches upon which lie the shrouded dead. While Raven, the ‘true sexton’ and librarian knows that these are peaceful sleepers awaiting resurrection, Vane sees only ‘the unwaking’ dead—a perspective that has already been anticipated in his inability to see books as potentially ‘living things.’¹¹ Unsurprisingly, then, when Raven invites him to lie down to sleep amongst the shrouded figures, the terrified Vane refuses. Vane’s rejection of the opportunity to join the sleepers is an indicator of his moral and spirituality immaturity—his inability to read both himself and the sleeping ‘books’ as the librarian does: with honesty, care, and generosity.

   The association between books and people in this novel is, admittedly, quite slippery and raises some questions about the helpfulness of linking the two in our discussions of reading. Alan Jacobs, whose theology of reading converges in many ways with MacDonald’s own ‘Christian poetics’, articulates the problem (and benefit) well: ‘to think of a book as a thing is to commodify it in ways that deny it human significance: Conversely, to think of it as a gift, as a human activity, may create confusion—How can a book be a person? […] but it is a productive and enabling confusion.’¹² A ‘productive and enabling confusion’ is, I think, precisely the sort of thing MacDonald means to provoke in readers of Lilith. As with Raven’s enigmatic responses to Vane’s questions about the relationship between raven and man, sexton and librarian, so Lilith’s slippery terms encourage us to let go of our understanding—to, at the risk of pushing the metaphor, ‘die’ to some of our existing categories of thought—and read in a state of openness or receptivity that might just offer us new insight or connections. As Rita Felski points out, ‘receptivity can have consequences for thought. If a work exists only as an object to be deciphered, its impact will be attenuated.’¹³ For MacDonald, openness in reading has the potential to lead to a divine encounter. For those who are more cautious about this sort of theological claim, though, this openness can still be a beneficial practice, particularly as we explore the dynamic, varied, and creative relationships between Christianity and literature.¹⁴

   Despite the moments of productive confusion we find in Lilith, the ethical outworking of Vane’s reading is fairly clear. When his fancy is caught by one of Raven’s resurrected worm-butterflies Vane longs to possess it. As if in acquiescence to his desire, the butterfly—whose wings have become ‘nearly square’ and which flashes ‘all the colours of the rainbow’—sinks towards him.¹⁵ The creature’s approach makes Vane feel as though ‘the treasure of the universe were giving itself to me.’¹⁶ Whether this lively treasure is indeed giving itself to Vane, or whether his sense of entitlement shapes his understanding of the event is unclear. Regardless, his attempt to possess it proves to be fatal. Reaching out to take the glowing butterfly, ‘its light went out; all was dark as pitch; a dead book with boards outspread lay cold and heavy in my hand.’¹⁷ The death of the butterfly-book highlights the moral transgression that results from Vane’s mode of engaging with books. It also highlights how Vane’s attempt to possess the book as an object curtails the delight and benefit he might have otherwise received from it.

   Eventually, Vane comes to recognise how the way he has been reading is reflective of his deep-rooted selfishness and lack of concern for others.

I sighed—and regarded with wonder my past self, which preferred the company of book or pen to that of man or woman; which, if the author of a tale I was enjoying appeared, would wish him away that I might return to his story. I had chosen the dead rather than the living … I had not cared for my live brothers and sisters.¹⁸

Choosing the dead rather than the living is, in part, a choice to read in a way that prioritises isolation and comfort over openness and understanding. Vane’s observation that he would have regarded the appearance of a book’s author as a hindrance to his own enjoyment indicates his unwillingness to have his interpretation of a book challenged or qualified, even by its writer. But there is also an ethical element here that goes beyond Vane’s self-indulgent reading to his place within the wider human community. His choice to isolate himself and see to his own comfort when reading is mirrored in a similar pattern of behaviour that has hindered him from caring for his ‘live brothers and sisters’.

   Vane’s reflection on the correspondence between his reading practices and his relationships with his ‘live brothers and sisters’ might prompt some consideration for those of us who spend so much of our time reading. Reading, analysing, memorising, writing—all of these practices form habits of thought and attention that cannot help but shape our interactions with others. At a time when much of our communication takes place remotely and in written forms like email and social media, it seems to me that the question of how to read takes on an even greater significance. Might it be the case that adopting a critical habit of relating to the literary text as a ‘live’ thing could not only aid our understanding of the text, but also beneficially shape our broader habits of openness, attention, and generosity in our daily interactions with others?

   This piece has explored only one of the many ways that a Christian poetics of prose might draw on theological ideas in order to contribute to current conversations in literary studies. As I have sought to demonstrate in my reading of Lilith, thinking about an ethics of reading in terms of death/resurrection brings to the fore the idea that reading might be transformative for the reader. It also highlights the ways in which a reader might, like Vane, resist an open and attentive form of reading (perhaps, in part, to avoid the potentially uncomfortable possibility of transformation!). Examining MacDonald’s ethics of reading also demonstrates more broadly how Christianity might inform our own work as literary scholars and writers, whether by shaping our practices of reading or by offering us a theological vocabulary for thinking through our own most pressing questions. In doing so it underscores the importance and benefit of continuing to invite the ‘living’ writers of the past into our current conversations about Christian poetics.

¹ Mark Knight, Good Words: Evangelicalism and the Victorian Novel (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2019).
² Susan E. Colón, Victorian Parables (London: Continuum, 2012), xii.
³ David Mahan, ‘The Critical Task of a Christian Poetics,’ Among Winter Cranes, vol. 6, no. 1 (Winter 2023).
⁴ Alongside openness and attention to the text MacDonald the lecturer and scholar also recommended attending to relevant history, biography, linguistics, and so on.
⁵ George MacDonald, Lilith: A Romance (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), 5.
⁶ George MacDonald, ‘St. George’s Day, 1564.’ A Dish of Orts: Chiefly Papers on the Imagination, and on Shakspere, (London: Sampson Low, Marston, 1895),140. Internet Archive, archive.org/details/dishofortschief06macduoft/page/n7.
⁷ ‘Perceive ye not we are of worm-like kind, / Born to bring forth the angel butterfly, / That soars to Judgment, and no screen doth find?’ (Purgatory 10.124-126).
⁸ MacDonald, Lilith, 20.
⁹ Ibid., 30.
¹⁰ Ibid., 20.
¹¹ Ibid., 32.
¹² Alan Jacobs, A Theology of Reading: The Hermeneutics of Love (Abingdon: Routledge, 2001), 78.
¹³ Rita Felski, Hooked: Art and Attachment (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2020), 28.
¹⁴ The notion of open, attentive, reading might seem to be in conflict with the more analytical mode of reading expected in literary scholarship, but I would maintain (alongside MacDonald) that both are important aspects of scholarly work. As Rita Felski points out, ‘Critique needs to be supplemented by generosity, pessimism by hope, negative aesthetics by a sustained reckoning with the communicative, expressive, and world-disclosing aspects of art.’ (‘After Suspicion,’ Profession, 2009, 33).
¹⁵ MacDonald, Lilith, 47.
¹⁶ Ibid.
¹⁷ Ibid.
¹⁸ Ibid., 83-84.