The Catholic literary revival is a term that has been applied to a movement towards explicitly

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

allegiance and themes among leading literary figures in France and England, roughly in the century from 1860 to 1960. This often involved conversion to Catholicism or a conversion-like return to the Catholic Church. The phenomenon is sometimes extended to the United States.

France

French authors sometimes grouped in a Catholic literary revival include

Léon Bloy Léon Bloy (; 11 July 1846 – 3 November 1917) was a French Catholic novelist, essayist, pamphleteer (or lampoonist), and satirist, known additionally for his eventual (and passionate) defense of Catholicism and for his influence within French C ...

, J. K. Huysmans,

Charles Péguy Charles Pierre Péguy (; 7 January 1873 – 5 September 1914) was a French poet, essayist, and editor. His two main philosophies were socialism and nationalism. By 1908 at the latest, after years of uneasy agnosticism, he had become a believing b ...

Paul Claudel Paul Claudel (; 6 August 1868 – 23 February 1955) was a French poet, dramatist and diplomat, and the younger brother of the sculptor Camille Claudel. He was most famous for his verse dramas, which often convey his devout Catholicism. Early lif ...

Georges Bernanos Louis Émile Clément Georges Bernanos (; 20 February 1888 – 5 July 1948) was a French author, and a soldier in World War I. A Catholic with monarchist leanings, he was critical of elitist thought and was opposed to what he identified as defe ...

and

François Mauriac François Charles Mauriac (, oc, Francés Carles Mauriac; 11 October 1885 – 1 September 1970) was a French novelist, dramatist, critic, poet, and journalist, a member of the'' Académie française'' (from 1933), and laureate of the Nobel Prize ...

, as well as the philosophers Jacques Maritain and

Gabriel Marcel Gabriel Honoré Marcel (7 December 1889 – 8 October 1973) was a French philosopher, playwright, music critic and leading Christian existentialist. The author of over a dozen books and at least thirty plays, Marcel's work focused on the mode ...

England

The main figures who have been seen as constituting a revival of a leading Catholic presence in national literary life in England include

John Henry Newman John Henry Newman (21 February 1801 – 11 August 1890) was an English theologian, academic, intellectual, philosopher, polymath, historian, writer, scholar and poet, first as an Anglican ministry, Anglican priest and later as a Catholi ...

, Gerard Manley Hopkins,

Hilaire Belloc Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc (, ; 27 July 187016 July 1953) was a Franco-English writer and historian of the early twentieth century. Belloc was also an orator, poet, sailor, satirist, writer of letters, soldier, and political activist. H ...

, G. K. Chesterton,

Alfred Noyes Alfred Noyes CBE (16 September 188025 June 1958) was an English poet, short-story writer and playwright. Early years Noyes was born in Wolverhampton, England the son of Alfred and Amelia Adams Noyes. When he was four, the family moved to Ab ...

Robert Hugh Benson Robert Hugh Benson AFSC KC*SG KGCHS (18 November 1871 – 19 October 1914) was an English Catholic priest and writer. First an Anglican priest, he was received into the Catholic Church in 1903 and ordained therein the next year. He ...

Ronald Knox Ronald Arbuthnott Knox (17 February 1888 – 24 August 1957) was an English Catholic priest, theologian, author, and radio broadcaster. Educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, where he earned a high reputation as a classicist, Knox wa ...

Graham Greene Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading English novelists of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquir ...

, and

Evelyn Waugh Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh (; 28 October 1903 – 10 April 1966) was an English writer of novels, biographies, and travel books; he was also a prolific journalist and book reviewer. His most famous works include the early satires '' Decl ...

. Of these, Belloc was the only writer raised a Catholic; the others were adult converts. J.R.R. Tolkien, although a convinced Catholic, "is not generally perceived to be one of the key protagonists of the Catholic literary revival". In his writing, his own Catholic convictions and his use of Catholic themes are far less explicit than was the case for the other writers mentioned. There is, however, a growing tendency to look at Tolkien within the English Catholic literary tradition of his time. Although distinct, a movement towards explicit religious loyalty and themes in Anglican and Anglo-Catholic writers such as

George MacDonald George MacDonald (10 December 1824 – 18 September 1905) was a Scottish author, poet and Christian Congregational church, Congregational Minister (Christianity), minister. He was a pioneering figure in the field of modern fantasy literature a ...

, T. S. Eliot,

C. S. Lewis Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963) was a British writer and Anglican lay theologian. He held academic positions in English literature at both Oxford University (Magdalen College, 1925–1954) and Cambridge Univers ...

and

Dorothy L. Sayers Dorothy Leigh Sayers (; 13 June 1893 – 17 December 1957) was an English crime writer and poet. She was also a student of classical and modern languages. She is best known for her mysteries, a series of novels and short stories set between th ...

is sometimes linked to the Catholic literary revival as a broader phenomenon.

United States

Due to the influence of Catholic literature from England in the United States,Arnold Sparr, ''To Promote, Defend, and Redeem: The Catholic Literary Revival and the Cultural Transformation of American Catholicism, 1920-1960'' (Greenwood Press, 1990). the concept of "Catholic revival" is sometimes extended to include American authors such as

Dorothy Day Dorothy Day (November 8, 1897 – November 29, 1980) was an American journalist, social activist and anarchist who, after a bohemian youth, became a Catholic without abandoning her social and anarchist activism. She was perhaps the best-known ...

, Thomas Merton, William Thomas Walsh,

Warren Carroll Warren H. Carroll (March 24, 1932 – July 17, 2011) was the founder and first president of Christendom College in Front Royal, Virginia. He authored multiple works of Roman Catholic church history. Biography The son of Herbert Allen Carroll ...

Fulton Sheen Fulton John Sheen (born Peter John Sheen, May 8, 1895 – December 9, 1979) was an American bishop of the Catholic Church known for his preaching and especially his work on television and radio. Ordained a priest of the Diocese of Peoria in ...

Walker Percy Walker Percy, OSB (May 28, 1916 – May 10, 1990) was an American writer whose interests included philosophy and semiotics. Percy is noted for his philosophical novels set in and around New Orleans; his first, '' The Moviegoer'', won the Nat ...

, J. F. Powers and

Flannery O'Connor Mary Flannery O'Connor (March 25, 1925August 3, 1964) was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist. She wrote two novels and 31 short stories, as well as a number of reviews and commentaries. She was a Southern literature, Southe ...

. One of the early leaders of the revival in the United States was the editor and publisher Francis X. Talbot.

References

Citations

Sources

*{{Cite book, title=To Promote, Defend, and Redeem: The Catholic Literary Revival and the Cultural Transformation of American Catholicism, 1920–1960, last=Sparr, first=Arnold, publisher= Greenwood Press, year=1990, isbn=0-313-26391-4, series=Contributions to the Study of Religion, volume=25, location=Westport, Connecticut, pages=17–30, chapter=Chapter 2: Francis X. Talbot and the Catholic Literary "Emergence", access-date=December 29, 2019, chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=txGvERRncrgC&pg=PA17, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191217150605/https://books.google.com/books?id=txGvERRncrgC&pg=PA17#v=onepage&q&f=false, archive-date=December 17, 2019, url-status=live, via=

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Literary movements 19th-century literature 20th-century British literature 20th-century French literature 20th-century American literature Catholic culture