Date of Award

Fall 12-2012

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

English

School

Humanities

Committee Chair

Jameela Lares

Committee Chair Department

English

Committee Member 2

Charles Sumner

Committee Member 2 Department

English

Committee Member 3

Damon Franke

Committee Member 3 Department

English

Committee Member 4

Amy Slagle

Committee Member 4 Department

Philosophy and Religion

Committee Member 5

Kate Cochran

Committee Member 5 Department

English

Abstract

C. S. Lewis, T. S. Eliot, and W. H. Auden all converted to the Christian faith and, upon conversion, turned to the theme of time in their post-conversion works. Interestingly, these Christian authors employed the secular philosophical framework of Henri Bergson’s theory of duration to construct their theologies of time. As texts fostered by Bergson’s ideas of intuition, the dualistic self, and durative force, Lewis’s The Great Divorce, Eliot’sFour Quartets, and Auden’s “Kairos and Logos” are theological works that depict time as an agent.

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