Includes bibliographical references and index.

About this volume -- On crises of faith -- Critical contexts -- Crises of faith: an overview of critical commentary -- In memoriam A.H.H. as baptism: crises of faith and renewal through poetic tides -- The crisis of faith theme in works by Claude McKay, Countee Cullen, and other writers of the Harlem Renaissance -- Close reading and the crisis of faith in Elie Wiesel's Night critical readings -- Job's crisis of faith: frustration and revelation -- John Donne's crisis of faith: the holy sonnets -- "His dying hour was gloom": crises of faith in Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown" -- Huckleberry Finn and the spiritual crisis of its time -- "Delivered from the womb of his purposeless splendor": Jay Gatsby and the hope of spiritual salvation inThe Great Gatsby -- Ernest Hemingway's books of common prayer -- Crises of faith in the poetry of Wilfred Owen -- Original sin, crises of faith, and the possibility of redemption in All the king's men -- Crises of faith in the short fiction of Flannery O'Connor.