Religious Feeling and Religious Commitment in Faulkner, Dostoyevsky, Werfel and Bernanos

First published in 1988, the aim of this study is to define the role of religious meaning in the modern novel and to demonstrate that the novel can successfully express a religious feeling, but not a religious commitment. Through the analysis of four novels by Faulkner, Dostoyevsky, Werfel and Bernanos, the work explains why novels with a single definite commitment tend to be implausible and lacking in aesthetic unity.