Redeeming “decadent” Europe: Vicarious reparation in the catholic revival in Germany and France (1870-1945)

This dissertation investigates the concept of vicarious reparation in novels written as part of the Catholic Literary Revival in France and Germany between the years 1870 and 1945. Vicarious reparation is the practice of one person making amends to God on behalf of another person or group by offering their prayers, works, joys, and sufferings as a participation in Christ’s redemptive self-sacrifice on the cross. In Chapter 1, I analyze the ways in which decadence and vicarious reparation are depicted and deployed in Joris-Karl Huysmans’ (1848-1907) novels À rebours and Sainte Lydwine de Schiedam. In Chapter 2, I analyze Gertrud von le Fort’s (1876-1971) non-fiction work Die ewige Frau, her two-part novel Das Schweißtuch der Veronika, and her novella Die letzte am Schafott. In Chapter 3, I analyze Georges Bernanos’ (1888-1948) novels Sous le soleil de Satan and Journal d’un curé de campagne. The fundamental question at stake in my investigation is the relationship between the Roman Catholic Church and the modern world. I argue that the Catholic Revival authors’ exploration of vicarious reparation in their novels is a response to, as well as a participation in, the idea that fin-de-siècle European society had become decadent. These authors saw vicarious reparation as a way to make amends for the harms committed against God by modern Europeans, both Catholics and non-Catholics: the Church as the mystical Body of Christ could take upon itself and expiate the sins of the “sick” social body. My method is primarily that of historical exegesis in that I attempt to reconstruct each author’s specific idea of decadence, and his or her particular theology of vicarious reparation as a response to it, through close reading of their published work and correspondence and by situating their work within theological, philosophical, and literary discourses of their time. I emphasize the Catholic Revival’s perhaps surprising connection to the Decadent literary movement, which responded to theories of social decadence by glorifying all that is considered sick in the culture and cultivating an aesthetic of decay, and I argue that the Catholic Revival authors similarly embraced symbols of defeat and pessimism in order to regenerate both their specific national cultures and European culture more broadly. As I outline each author’s ideas of decadence, and of vicarious reparation as a response, I pay special attention to how they gender these concepts, and to the relationship between Catholics and non-Catholics implicit in their theories. Huysmans sees decadence as a loss of virility, while Le Fort understands it as the loss of religiosity, which in her theory is fundamentally feminine. Both Le Fort and Huysmans gender vicarious reparation as a primarily feminine activity. Bernanos both characterizes decadence via gender ambiguity and mixes traditional masculine and feminine traits in his protagonists who practice reparation. Across these three authors’ works, I also observe an increasing solidarity with and humility toward non-Catholics that challenges a binary understanding of vicarious reparation as Catholics expiating the sins of all the “others” of the world. I conclude with a brief reflection on Pope John Paul II’s intervention in the theology of vicarious reparation in his 1984 Salvifici Doloris, and a short analysis of the themes of the dissertation in a contemporary Catholic-inspired work, Will Arbery’s 2019 play Heroes of the Fourth Turning.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Comparative Literature

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2023

Author dc:creator

• Stoeckl, Stephanie Johanna

Contributors dc:contributor

• Johnson, Laurie
• Murav, Harriet
• Proulx, Francois
• Ebel, Jonathan

• Catholic Revival
• Renouveau Catholique
• Catholicism
• Vicarious Reparation
• Vicarious Suffering
• Decadence
• Fin-de-siecle
• German Literature
• French Literature
• J.K. Huysmans
• Gertrud Von Le Fort
• Georges Bernanos

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2023 Stephanie Johanna Stoeckl

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/121493

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F121493