Christ and Apollo: The Dimensions of the Literary Imagination

by William F. Lynch

Christ and Apollo, originally published in 1960, is a classic of literary criticism, a book that Commonweal once predicted may well change the course of literary studies. It did not do that, of course. Its literary, philosophical, and theological presuppositions, as Glenn Arbery points out in his new introduction, were too different from those of the ruling theoretical paradigms for it to be given a hearing And that is precisely what makes it a volume worth returning to. In Christ and Apollo, William Lynch examines the Greek dramatists, Dante, Shakespeare, Proust, Camus, Graham Greene, and other writers in light of their affinities with two opposing tendencies. The symbol of the first approach is Apollo. For Lynch, this is the tendency to want to escape the finite, real world and the human condition of embodiment: it has much in common with what critic Allen Tate called the angelic imagination. The symbol of the other tendency is Christ, the Word made flesh. Artists working in this tradition give readers a glimpse of the infinite by working patiently and honestly with the materials of the finite world, in all its messy imprecision. For Lynch, then, as Arbery points out, limitation, or finitude, is the great human good. Praised by Flannery O'Connor, among others, Lynch's sophisticated work is in many ways an important elaboration of the New Criticism, avoiding that school of thought's formalist excesses while providing it with firmer philosophical ground. For anyone interested in understanding what distinguishes great literature, Christ and Apollo is an essential text.

Genres: Philosophy, Theology, Literary Criticism, Religion, Literature, Nonfiction, Christian

371 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1963

Reviews

[Ted · Rating 3 out of 5]

… a creative theologian and critic penetrates the heart of literature, from the Greek dramatists, Dante, and Shakespeare to Proust, Greene, Camus, and O’Neill.

from blurb on back cover
3 1/2

other books mentioned in review

The Phenomenon of Man
Renaissance Essays
The Jesuits: A History from Ignatius to the Present


the author

William F. Lynch was a Jesuit who for several years, just before I enrolled at Georgetown University in 1962, was the director of the Honors program there. His obituary in the NYT (http://www.nytimes.com/1987/01/12/obi...) describes him as an “author of books on literature, media and theology”.


personal

Christ and Apollo is a book that I acquired during those college years. I’m not sure why, possibly for a course I took. The dim halls of time past.

At any rate, I was going to get rid of the book a year or two ago when I resolved to start reducing my library. But taking a look at it, I decided to keep it. One reason was that I had actually marked and written in it, proving that I’d read some of it. In fact, there are numerous traces of my reading it throughout the book, until the last two chapters are encountered. (These are called 7. The Theological Imagination and 8. The Christian Imagination. No mystery why I must have stopped reading.)


the book

In his Introduction, Lynch mentions the title of the book, and writes

… let Apollo stand for everything that is weak and pejorative in the “aesthetic man” of Kierkegaard … Let him also stand for a kind of autonomous and facile intellectualism, a Cartesianism, that thinks form can be given to the world by the top of the head alone, without contact with the world, without contact with the rest of the self.

On the other hand I mean Christ to stand for the completely definite, for the Man who, in taking on our human nature (as the artist must) took on every inch of it (save sin) in all its density … the model and source of that energy and courage we again need to enter the finite as the only creative and generative source of beauty …

The book’s first chapters, which I’ve read are

1. The Definite
2. Time
3. Tragedy
4. Comedy
5. The Univocal and Equivocal
6. The Analogical

There are also several learned Supplements at the end of the book:
I. On the Definite
II. On Time
III. On Analogy: A Bibliography
IV. On Medieval Exegesis

These are (except for III) lengthy essays which examine the views of specific thinkers (most of whom are pretty obscure).

The biggest fault for a casual reader is the lack of an index. I know that many famous writers are discussed in the book. There is a way of getting at some of them, by examining the notes at the chapter ends. For example, at the end of chapter 2 I can see references for Proust, Baudelaire, Malraux, Cervantes, Aeschylus, Dante. But this is not really satisfactory.


Jesuits

Apparently Lynch was thought rather highly of in certain circles back then. Of course it’s nothing new to encounter a Jesuit with high academic or otherwise professional qualifications. Francis J. Heyden was the head of Georgetown's astronomy department in those years, and we students always understood that he was quite well known in that community – though perhaps not, since he has no Wiki page now. And then there is someone like Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (who does have an extensive Wiki page) the philosopher, paleontologist and geologist. Many other examples.

Hugh Trevor-Roper (Renaissance Essays) has an extended passage in The Culture of the Baroque Courts about the Jesuits’ remarkable role in the Counter-Reformation. It seems a balanced, and very perceptive, summary of the aims of, and tactics used by, the order. It occurred to me that an interesting read might be had from a general history of the Jesuits. The trick would be to find one which was neither white-washed nor pejorative. After a little research I concluded that a good starting point (and it could be enough) might be The Jesuits: A History from Ignatius to the Present, a very recent and quite short volume – written by a Jesuit, yes, but one who has written many books that have been well-received.

Christ and Apollo is still in print, as are many of the books that Teilhard de Chardin wrote decades ago - such as The Phenomenon of Man, which I acquired at Georgetown and still have. Maybe books like these really do justify their current life on an economic basis; but perhaps this also says something about the staying power of Christian/Catholic/Jesuit books in the U.S.


recommendation

Anyway, who would want to read this book? I would say the potential readers are the set who are interested in a philosophical type of literary criticism, a religious (Christian) viewpoint growing out of the sentiments expressed in the quote above.


personal again

Meanwhile, having written this little review, I now realize that I really am ready to say goodbye to Lynch’s book. I might still keep it if it had an index.

[Drew Norwood · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars. This is not the book suggested in the title or introduction. The title plays on Nietzche’s dichotomy developed in The Birth of Tragedy (between Apollo and Dionysius), and the introduction sets it up as a new framework built on Christology as the key to harmonizing the finite and the infinite. "As for the title, Christ and Apollo. Neitzsche and Spengler have accustomed us to the contrariety and the paring of Dionysius and Apollo: energy and form, infinite and finite, enthusiasm and control, romantic and classic…Because I think that in our time we need a new movement toward the definite and away from the dream, I take even the symbol of Apollo as a kind of infinite dream over against Christ who was full of definiteness and actuality…On the other hand, I mean Christ to stand for the completely definitive, for the Man who, in taking on our human nature (as the artist must) took on every inch of it (save sin) in all its density, and Who so obviously did not march too quickly or too glibly to beauty, the infinite, the dream."

But Lynch never really follows through on this. Another downside is that the book is too heady and academic.

[David Withun · Rating 4 out of 5]

-

[Jon Mehlhaus · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this pretty quick and have to admit that some of Lynch's book was lost on me. Despite this, I found his central premise engaging, and he compelled me to think a lot about what kind of art I like, what speaks to me, and why. Lynch, a Jesuit priest who has written extensively about classical theatre, argues that creative works have two tendencies, the Christological and the Apollonian. The former is a sort of realism that produces insight about universals, mirroring how Christ, in being human, tells us a lot about what it means both to suffer as human through his suffering and also what redemption looks like from that suffering. The kinds of works that Lynch finds as Christological are varied but they all attempt to describe a concrete aspect of living - sometimes something very mundane or inconsequential - and through that difficult work, a fundamental truth about the wider world is realized. The Apollonian tendency is the opposite. By trying to describe things outside of time or to break out of time and our createdness, artists fail to say anything substantial about what it means to be human.

I could be totally off base in that summary, by the way. This book was a slog in parts, but it had some real powerful moments. In a world where a lot of our appraisal and criticism of art is compartmentalized, it was refreshing to read about how writing and other creative endeavors could be truly theological acts. It jives with some of the truths I've come to know working as a chaplain, that in simple restating of what someone is going through by practicing active listening, we add a depth and sacral element to a person's suffering, simply by witnessing to it.

[J. Alfred · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was cited by a scholar (Albert Gelpi) whom I respect immensely; upon reading the book, I can't concieve as to why it was so cited. It is frankly irritating in many ways, not least of which is tone (the book ends-- after a strange humanistic but polemic kind of doxology-- "What more is there to say?"). The book's title is a diversion: in the introduction the author claims that he's going to change Nietzsche's Dionysus/Apollo pairing to be more true to life with a Christ/Apollo pairing, and then doesn't refer to that frame again for the remainder of the work. He is somehow both too technical and too cavalier at the same time. His literary judgements are suspect at the least.
And yet there is something interesting and even engaging about the book. If one comes to it with differing expectations (expectations that do not, for instance, include hoping to learn something about literature), one might find it quite impressive.
"This double longing exists in all of us. We want the unlimited and the dream, and we also want the earth."
Reminds me quite a bit of Francis Schaeffer, the good and the bad.

[Allie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read the description “pretentiously academic but useless” somewhere once, and that perfectly describes this book!

The language Lynch uses is a brain-tiring slog, and if I’m honest for most of the book I didn’t really understand what he was talking about. For example, in talking about ‘analogy’ as a literary concept, he writes, “In other words, in an analogical organism of unity and its epistemological counterpart, and analogical idea, every thing in the subjects is altogether the same, and every thing altogether different.” You can kind of follow what he’s saying, but surely there are better ways of communicating than that?

The entire book is this way. I finished it because I usually challenges and ain’t no quitter, but oof.

[Lux]

Oh man this was seriously wonderful — great analysis of the role of the imagination in theology, and a beautiful praise of limitation. There are some very endearing typos which made me smile. Reading this alongside Dante has made me appreciate the ordinary and the concrete in new ways.

[Jeremy]

W.H. Auden: "Surprisingly little work of value has been done on the aesthetic implications of Christian theology, about such questions, for example as—Is there a kind of imagination which can be recognized and defined as Christian? Is it possible for an artist who is a perfectly orthodox Christian in his conscious beliefs to exhibit a heretical imagination in his art, or for one who is not a Christian believer to produce works which are aesthetically orthodox? In my opinion, Father Lynch belongs, with Dr. Auerbach and Rudolf Kasher, to the very small group indeed of critics who have something really illuminating to say on such matters."

[Thomas Womack · Rating 5 out of 5]

After finishing it in a first read, I am now rereading it -- a great deal to think about, and his points are not always easy to grasp, but they seem very valuable as a contribution to anyone interested in wanting to serve our culture as a writer and literary artist.