Playful Wisdom

Playful Wisdom examines how Henry David Thoreau's thinking about religious "e;play"e; created a theological legacy in American literature-one that includes Emily Dickinson, Jack Kerouac, Thomas Merton, Annie Dillard, and Marilynne Robinson. Although these writers differ in many ways, they share with Thoreau an improvisational "e;looseness"e; or "e;mobility"e; in their thinking about the sacred, a sense that religious experience unsettles fixed belief and alters the very shape of the perceiving self. From this perspective, Robert Leigh Davis argues, unswerving orthodoxy is not as crucial to a life of faith as a light-handed responsiveness of spirit that constantly revises fixed assumptions in light of new experiences. Dickinson describes this responsiveness as "e;nimble believing"e; and Thoreau calls it "e;holy play."e; Scholars of literature, religion, and philosophy will find this book particularly useful.