The Boundary Stones of Belief

Chapter 4, ‘The Boundary Stones of Belief,’ argues that Clemence Dane’s literary and social criticism concerning belief acknowledges and addresses the moderns’ spiritual hunger. The chapter documents Dane’s support for a broad range of spiritual practice. Drawing on texts from both Western and world traditions, Dane traces the biblical forms and mythic patterns that structure the religious literature of the past and that continue to inform modern societal dilemmas. The chapter contends that Dane’s book essays of the 1920s were in the advance guard of archetypal criticism, usually dated to the 1930s. Moreover, Dane gives sustained attention to literary genres that crystallize spiritual wisdom, encode furtive belief, and reveal the persecution of believers. These generic roles take on particular urgency in a climate of divisive clerical practice and an era of newspaper readers’ blunted compassion for human suffering. In the face of sensationalizing media, Dane urges that literature treat serious subjects with the magnitude that Aristotle called for. The chapter demonstrates that Dane’s criticism was reinforced in Good Housekeeping by featured clerical voices and retellings of biblical stories.