• Skip to main content
  • Skip to main navigation
Baylor University
English
College of Arts & Sciences
  • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Beall Poetry Festival
    • English Major Career Possibilities
    • Partnerships
    • Study Abroad
  • Undergraduate
    • First-Year Writing
    • Literature
      • Courses Offered
      • Degree Plan
    • Linguistics
      • Career Possibilities
      • Courses Offered
      • Degree Plan
      • Resources
    • Professional Writing & Rhetoric
      • Courses Offered
      • Degree Plan
      • Internships
    • Creative Writing Minor
    • Scholarships
    • Student Awards
      • Past Winners
  • Graduate
    • M.A. Policies and Procedures
    • Ph.D. Policies and Procedures
    • Certificate in Literature & Religion
    • English Graduate Student Association (EGSA)
    • Graduate Opportunities
      • Past Winners
    • Graduate Travel Funding
  • Faculty
    • Publications
      • Literacy in a Long Blues Note
      • Modernity, Community, and Place in Brian Friel's Drama
      • A Fire to Light Our Tongues
      • Hollow Palaces
      • Haunted Property
      • American Literary Cultures
      • Sacred Rhetorical Education in 19th Century America
      • Modernism in the Green
      • A Long, Long Way
      • Hope and Aesthetic Utility in Modernist Literature
      • The Courage to See
      • The Evil Twins of American Television
      • Harvest Bells
      • Letters of a Long Name
      • Constructing Nineteenth-Century Religion
      • Reforming Women
      • Thomas Hoccleve
      • Mark Twain Under Fire
      • Building Natures
      • Understanding Marilynne Robinson
      • Living with the Living Dead
      • The Life Group
      • Then Winter
      • Building Jerusalem
      • The Divine Face in Four Writers
      • Seamus Heaney: An Introduction
      • Imagined Spiritual Communities in Britain's Age of Print
      • Housework and Gender in American Television
      • The Boke of the Cyte of Ladyes
      • Entertaining Judgment
      • Seamus Heaney's Regions
      • Elegy on Kinderklavier
      • Tracing Southern Storytelling in Black and White
      • Mapping Christian Rhetorics
      • The Tulip-Flame
      • The Glyph and the Gramophone
      • The Prodigal
      • Beyond the Pulpit
      • The Reconstruction of Mark Twain
      • Sylvia Plath's Fiction
  • Organizations
    • 19CRS
    • 20CRS
    • House of Poetry
    • Linguistics Club
    • Literary Society
    • MRRS
    • Professional Writing & Rhetoric Organization
    • Sigma Tau Delta
    • The Phoenix Literary Magazine
  • University Writing Center
  • Make a Gift
Baylor BU English Faculty Publications Understanding Marilynne Robinson
  • Publications
    • Literacy in a Long Blues Note
    • Modernity, Community, and Place in Brian Friel's Drama
    • A Fire to Light Our Tongues
    • Hollow Palaces
    • Haunted Property
    • American Literary Cultures
    • Sacred Rhetorical Education in 19th Century America
    • Modernism in the Green
    • A Long, Long Way
    • Hope and Aesthetic Utility in Modernist Literature
    • The Courage to See
    • The Evil Twins of American Television
    • Harvest Bells
    • Letters of a Long Name
    • Constructing Nineteenth-Century Religion
    • Reforming Women
    • Thomas Hoccleve
    • Mark Twain Under Fire
    • Building Natures
    • Understanding Marilynne Robinson
    • Living with the Living Dead
    • The Life Group
    • Then Winter
    • Building Jerusalem
    • The Divine Face in Four Writers
    • Seamus Heaney: An Introduction
    • Imagined Spiritual Communities in Britain's Age of Print
    • Housework and Gender in American Television
    • The Boke of the Cyte of Ladyes
    • Entertaining Judgment
    • Seamus Heaney's Regions
    • Elegy on Kinderklavier
    • Tracing Southern Storytelling in Black and White
    • Mapping Christian Rhetorics
    • The Tulip-Flame
    • The Glyph and the Gramophone
    • The Prodigal
    • Beyond the Pulpit
    • The Reconstruction of Mark Twain
    • Sylvia Plath's Fiction

Understanding Marilynne Robinson

Alex Engebretson, Senior Lecturer of English

Alex Engebretson offers the first comprehensive study of Marilynne Robinson’s fiction and essays to date, providing an overview of the author’s life, themes, and literary and religious influences. Understanding Marilynne Robinson examines this author of three highly acclaimed novels and recipient of the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction, the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, the Orange Prize for fiction, and the National Humanities Medal. Through close readings of the novels and essay collections, Engebretson uncovers the unifying elements of Robinson’s work: a dialogue with liberal Protestantism, an emphasis on regional settings, the marked influence of nineteenth-century American literature, and the theme of home.

The study begins with Housekeeping, Robinson’s haunting debut novel, which undertakes a feminist revision of the Western genre. Twenty-four years later Robinson began a literary project that would bring her national recognition, three novels set in a small, rural Iowa town. The first was Gilead, which took up the major American themes of race, the legacy of the Civil War, and the tensions between secular and religious lives. Two more Gilead novels followed, Home and Lila, both of which display Robinson’s gift for capturing the mysterious dynamics of sin and grace.

In Understanding Marilynne Robinson, Engebretson also reviews her substantial body of nonfiction, which demonstrates a dazzling intellectual range, from the contemporary science-religion debates, to Shakespeare, to the fate of liberal democracy. Throughout this study Engebretson makes the argument for Marilynne Robinson as an essential, deeply unfashionable, visionary presence within today’s literary scene.

University of South Carolina Press, 2017

ISBN 9781611178029


"Anyone who wants to understand the intellectual and theological wellsprings of Marilynne Robinson's work stands to learn a great deal from this terrific book. Fans of her fiction will be astonished by the depth and range of Engebretson's characteristically astute analysis." —Mark Eaton, Azusa Pacific University

English

College of Arts & Sciences

Carroll Science 106

Department of English
One Bear Place, #97404
Waco, TX 76798-7404

(254) 710-1768
Apply Now
Make a Gift
Contact Us
Location
Baylor BU English Faculty Publications Understanding Marilynne Robinson
  • About Us
    Back
    • Contact Us
    • Beall Poetry Festival
    • English Major Career Possibilities
    • Partnerships
    • Study Abroad
  • Undergraduate
    Back
    • First-Year Writing
    • Literature
      Back
      • Courses Offered
      • Degree Plan
    • Linguistics
      Back
      • Career Possibilities
      • Courses Offered
      • Degree Plan
      • Resources
    • Professional Writing & Rhetoric
      Back
      • Courses Offered
      • Degree Plan
      • Internships
    • Creative Writing Minor
    • Scholarships
    • Student Awards
      Back
      • Past Winners
  • Graduate
    Back
    • M.A. Policies and Procedures
    • Ph.D. Policies and Procedures
    • Certificate in Literature & Religion
    • English Graduate Student Association (EGSA)
    • Graduate Opportunities
      Back
      • Past Winners
    • Graduate Travel Funding
  • Faculty
    Back
    • Publications
      Back
      • Literacy in a Long Blues Note
      • Modernity, Community, and Place in Brian Friel's Drama
      • A Fire to Light Our Tongues
      • Hollow Palaces
      • Haunted Property
      • American Literary Cultures
      • Sacred Rhetorical Education in 19th Century America
      • Modernism in the Green
      • A Long, Long Way
      • Hope and Aesthetic Utility in Modernist Literature
      • The Courage to See
      • The Evil Twins of American Television
      • Harvest Bells
      • Letters of a Long Name
      • Constructing Nineteenth-Century Religion
      • Reforming Women
      • Thomas Hoccleve
      • Mark Twain Under Fire
      • Building Natures
      • Understanding Marilynne Robinson
      • Living with the Living Dead
      • The Life Group
      • Then Winter
      • Building Jerusalem
      • The Divine Face in Four Writers
      • Seamus Heaney: An Introduction
      • Imagined Spiritual Communities in Britain's Age of Print
      • Housework and Gender in American Television
      • The Boke of the Cyte of Ladyes
      • Entertaining Judgment
      • Seamus Heaney's Regions
      • Elegy on Kinderklavier
      • Tracing Southern Storytelling in Black and White
      • Mapping Christian Rhetorics
      • The Tulip-Flame
      • The Glyph and the Gramophone
      • The Prodigal
      • Beyond the Pulpit
      • The Reconstruction of Mark Twain
      • Sylvia Plath's Fiction
  • Organizations
    Back
    • 19CRS
    • 20CRS
    • House of Poetry
    • Linguistics Club
    • Literary Society
    • MRRS
    • Professional Writing & Rhetoric Organization
    • Sigma Tau Delta
    • The Phoenix Literary Magazine
  • University Writing Center
  • Make a Gift
  • General Information
  • Academics & Research
  • Administration
  • Admissions
  • Gateways for ...
  • About Baylor
  • Athletics
  • Ask Baylor
  • Bookstore
  • Calendar
  • Campus Map
  • Directory
  • Give Light
  • Give to Baylor
  • Illuminate
  • News
  • Pro Futuris
  • Search
  • Social Media
  • Baylor Libraries
  • College of Arts & Sciences
  • Diana R. Garland School of Social Work
  • George W. Truett Theological Seminary
  • Graduate School
  • Hankamer School of Business
  • Honors College
  • Law School
  • Louise Herrington School of Nursing
  • Research at Baylor University
  • Robbins College of Health and Human Sciences
  • School of Education
  • School of Engineering & Computer Science
  • School of Music
  • More Academics
  • Athletics
  • Human Resources
  • Marketing and Communications
  • Office of General Counsel
  • Office of the President
  • Office of the Provost
  • Operations, Finance & Administration
  • Senior Administration
  • Student Life
  • University Advancement
  • Undergraduate Admissions
  • goBAYLOR
  • Graduate Admissions
  • Baylor Law School Admissions
  • Social Work Graduate Programs
  • George W. Truett Theological Seminary Admissions
  • Online Graduate Professional Education
  • Virtual Tour
  • Visit Campus
  • Alumni & Friends
  • Faculty & Staff
  • Online Graduate Professional Education
  • Parents
  • Prospective Faculty & Staff
  • Prospective Students
  • Students
  • Accessibility
  • Anonymous Reporting
  • Annual Fire Safety and Security Notice
  • Digital Privacy
  • Legal Disclosures
  • Mental Health Resources
  • Report It
  • Title IX
 
Baylor University
Copyright © Baylor® University. All rights reserved.
Baylor University • Waco, Texas 76798 • 1-800-229-5678