Abstract
The opening chapter argues that the now oft-neglected concept of the soul has remained relevant to considerations of literature, art, and politics. After a brief overview of its metaphysical and religious origins, the authors examine the evolving significance of the soul within an increasingly secular society, with particular emphasis on the gradual dissociation of the concept from established religion and metaphysics and its alignment with psychology. They go on to analyse the changing understanding of the meaning of the soul in the post-World War II postsecular context. They emphasize the far-reaching and enduring epistemological function of the concept and elaborate on how the chapters of the book investigate its reinterpretation across three domains: literature, art, and politics.
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Notes
- 1.
A few scholars have recently reconsidered the soul from a literary, artistic, or political perspective. Among them, see for instance Abe Davies (2021), who examines the literary representation of the soul from the tenth century to the age of Shakespeare specifically; see Le Fustec et al. (2015) for an exploration of the links between spirituality, arts and sciences, and Le Fustec et al. (2022) for a study of the links between the soul and social sciences.
- 2.
William James defined religion in terms of individual experience and thought doctrines, while for him religious institutions were of secondary importance (James 1917).
- 3.
See for instance Rembrandt van Rijn, The Supper at Emmaus, 1628, oil on canvas, 39 × 42 cm, Jaquemart-André Museum, Paris, France. The disciple facing the viewer is privately experiencing the awe of divine revelation while the servant busy in the back room, who is unaware that Christ has revealed himself, represents the “objectively indifferent world” Simmel talks about.
- 4.
This organicist positivism sees the brain as being the first cause of psychological or mental disorder.
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Arènes, J., Louis-Dimitrov, D., Murail, E. (2024). Introduction. Rewriting the Soul: The Persistence of a Concept. In: Louis-Dimitrov, D., Murail, E. (eds) The Persistence of the Soul in Literature, Art and Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40934-9_1
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