Divine Representations The Rise of the Mystical Novel in Twentieth-Century England

Explores how Edwardian era writers used the mystical novel as a way to represent transcendent experiences within the tradition of the English realist novel.

Divine Representations examines the development of a unique form of "mystical novel" in the early twentieth century by a loose fellowship of like-minded British writers with a passion for mysticism. Although the Victorian era's growing fascination with all things esoteric and occult had led to sundry examples of "mystical" fiction, the Edwardian era saw the emergence of several mystics-cum-novelists—A. E. Waite, R. H. Benson, Evelyn Underhill, and Arthur Machen—who were largely skeptical of Victorian spiritualist and occult practices. They sought, instead, to disentangle mysticism from occultism and align it, explicitly or implicitly, with a Christian sacramental theology. Through close readings of their most exemplary mystical novels, the book identifies the distinctive features of this school of Edwardian mystical novelists, all of whom were inspired by the medieval past, inclined to distinguish mysticism from magic (to greater or lesser degrees), and interested in engaging the modern middlebrow reader with Christian mystical experience in ways not previously attempted in the English novel's realist tradition. Their work as novelists—but also as editors, translators, lecturers, and spiritual guides—illuminates popular attitudes toward mysticism that have persisted since the turn of the twentieth century and have powerfully influenced, for better or worse, the trajectory of religion and spirituality to the present day.

Carla A. Arnell is Professor of English and Associate Dean of the Faculty at Lake Forest College. She is the author of numerous articles and essays in publications such as Renascence, Studies in Medievalism, Christianity and Literature, and The Chronicle of Higher Education.