Shadow & Light : Literature & the Life of Faith

by Darryl Tippens, Stephen R. Weathers (Editor), Jeanne Murray Walker (Editor)

Outstanding Features:

Student Friendly. Concise biographical/critical introductions to readings, with helpful glosses and explanatory footnotes.

Broad in scope. Over 60 selections, comprising short stories, essays, poems, and full-length plays (new in the 2nd edition), including the full text of Hamlet with notes by David Bevington. Selections span literary history, from the Middle Ages to modern poetry, fiction, and drama.

Inclusive. Wide-ranging selections by variety of writers of diverse ethnicity and faith, working from or responding to the full spectrum of the Judeo-Christian tradition

International. Selections from writers on issues of faith from a variety of countries and cultures.

Contributors to the 2nd Edition include: Middle English Lyricists, Shakespeare, Langston Hughes, Madeleine L'Engle, Flannery O'Connor, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Horton Foote, Li-Young Lee, et al.

Genres: Poetry, Literature

384 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1997

Reviews

[Skylar Burris · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection of literature aims to compensate for the fact that, in the modern university, religion is often, let us say, less than embraced. It collects certain works of great writers that are often ignored and rarely included in anthologies because of their religious content, as well as including works that deal with "shadow and light" and "the life of faith" without necessarily being explicitly religious. And then there's Hamlet. Why they thought to give over a bulk of the anthology to Hamlet I don't know; it's not as if that play is overlooked and unassigned in schools and universities! I had to return it before I could look into it too deeply, but it seems to have an interesting selection. The notes are minimal.

[Marc · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice selection of works showing, oddly enough, the various authors' feelings of faith. Hawthorne and O'Connor are favorites of mine. This is more a college text than a straight-through reading project, although the straight-through process might be interesting if done in chronological order in an attempt to look at how faith expressions have changed over the years.