Negative capability and religious experience
Abstract
This article responds to each of the four essays on The Extravagance of Music in turn. It addresses the particular issues they raise, though a prominent contention running through the piece concerns the need for what André Gide calls ‘une disposition à l’accueil’ – that is, a posture of receptivity or hospitable disposition in relation to the revelatory potential of music. In explaining the importance of this openness to possibilities – which I argue should be ‘ecumenically’ extended to all types of music – the chapter invokes Keats’s notion of ‘negative capability’ and affirms, against approaches that seek to predetermine the theological meanings of music, the value in religious contexts of this willingness to dwell hospitably with indeterminacy.
Citation
Hopps , G 2020 , ' Negative capability and religious experience ' , International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church , vol. 20 , no. 1 , pp. 74-94 . https://doi.org/10.1080/1474225X.2020.1726262
Publication
International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
1474-225XType
Journal article
Collections
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