Religion and the Literary Critic

Abstract

In a recent article Jonathan Culler, condemned out of hand any use of religious terminology to define literature, seeing this as part of the destructive processes so-called “religion” has brought to American life. The article is an attempt to refute Culler by indicating, through an analysis of William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, that an attempt to reject all religion as being destructive or quaintly anachronistic (as Culler ultimately does) seriously limits the capacity of the literary critic to explore works of literature. Evidence is brought forward to suggest that while Faulkner rejects the hypocritically pious type of religion as does Culler, he, unlike Culler, seems to be aware that religion is a much broader and deeper concept than this, exploring in an extremely positive way a type of experience universally accepted as religious, which has about it none of the qualities which Culler rejects.