A Christian Approach to Literary Criticism

Leland Ryken’s book is the first I’ve read that prescribes a Christian approach to literature for critics and scholars to consider. I’ve read books on a Christian approach to aesthetics and the arts, and books that state the Christian perspective of certain works of literature, but this details what the Christian critic should consider specifically of literature, and all literature.

Leland Ryken has been writing on Christianity and literature for many years. This is an early book, published in 1979. Ryken has always looked at literature and theology side-by-side, as this book bears out. It is notable that this dual concern means Ryken’s is not solely the literary critic’s nor the theologian’s. The approach should not be assumed to reflect a moralistic, shallow reading of literature, as some may expect of an evangelical teacher. Nor is it such an aesthetic reading that the value of the art itself matters above the Scriptures and the Christian worldview. Ryken calls for reading of literature, even what may be called secular, and to evaluate it theologically as well as aesthetically.

Why should the Christian read literature, including secular? Ryken answers why anyone should read literature:

     1.      It presents human experience for our contemplation.
     2.      It offers itself as an object of beauty for our artistic contemplation.

The reasons, more specifically, to read of human experience:

     1.      It may express an experience the reader has had, in which case the author is our representative, expressing our feelings and values.
     2.      It may express an experience the reader has not had, in which case we may enlarge our being.
     3.      It provides material and occasion for recreation and enjoyment.
     4.      It leads to an understanding of human experience.
     5.      It confirms the uniqueness of man.

The Christian should read literature to learn worldviews, including those not his or her own. This is always a challenge. (I think the repeated topic of public discourse of late makes it a challenge to everyone, not just Christians.) One must be able to consider other worldviews, if only to relate to one’s own. Considering is not adopting.

          Literature presents a variety of world views for the
     reader’s analysis. Contemplating these serves the function
     of leading readers to evaluate, exercise and expand their
     own values and world view. Literature in this case is a
     catalyst for thought and a stimulus to the clarification of
     values. (102)

Why should the Christian critic know theology, more specifically, the Bible? Ryken advocates reading the Bible as literature, so to read it is to learn of literature. From the bible one learns about its genres – poetry, narrative, epistle, etc.; aspects of each genre in itself – form, rhythm, variety in unity, style in narratives; the use of archetypes; the source of allusions to the Bible.  Ryken suggests three uses of the Bible for the literary critic:

     1.      Using the Bible, rather than doctrine, to represent Christianity.
     2.      Using the biblical phrase or aphorism to help interpret literature.
     3.      Using the Bible to answer questions of literary theory.

This is not to say that every biblical approach to literature is a good one, in terms of topics. He writes of the ineffective effort by a critic to link Macbeth to the story of Cain and Abel, as the biblical story does not “help us to see meanings in the play that would otherwise remain obscure…” (214).

Why should the non-Christian read this book? Ryken clearly knows literature, and values it as such, not merely using it as a tool for teaching the Christian world view. In the chapter Literature and the Quest for Beauty, the author puts forward his structuralist approach, influenced by C.S. Lewis and Northrop Frye. He writes of the value of beauty in the Bible (as literature). He writes some literary critiques, mainly of form, of Psalm 1, Milton’s Sonnet 19, and e.e. cummings’s “In Just—“. Ryken writes of different levels of reading/enjoying a story: reading for plot, entering the imagined world, quality of experience, characterization, and archetypal pattern.

This book has become a personal favorite, particular to my interest in a Christian approach to literature. Chapter five, A Christian Approach to Literary Criticism, is, by itself, outstanding. I would use it for curriculum for any student of Christianity and literature, as it includes teaching on how to write on the subject.