Redemption in Poetry and Philosophy: Wordsworth, Kant, the Making of Post Christian Imagination

Highlighting the ways in which prose allegedly serves as a redemptive agent for nonbelievers in the modern age while engendering dangerous notions of self-redemption in contemporary Christians, Redemption in Poetry and Philosophy explores and critiques secular modes of salvation the modern, post-Christian imagination. A biblical understanding of redemption requires the sacrificial death of Jesus. In the post-Christian world envisioned by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his Enlightenment contemporaries, the Christ-centric source of redemption disappears, though the human need for salvation remains. Redemption in Poetry and Philosophy explores how this need for redemption is realized in the post-Christian poetics of William Wordsworth and philosophical imagination of Immanuel Kant. Simon Haines critiques the secular modes of salvation articulated by each figure to illustrate the shortcomings of modern, post-Christian imagination. Redemption in Poetry and Philosophy highlights the ways in which prose allegedly serves as a redemptive agent for nonbelievers in the modern age, but also engenders dangerous notions of self-redemption in contemporary Christians.