Literature and theology have long been conversation partners. The great themes of human
existence form the subject matter of their shared discussion. However comedic literature has
often been overlooked as a serious means to fostering such theological engagement. This book
seeks to rectify this imbalance. By examining selected works of the eighteenth-century
playwright and novelist Henry Fielding we are shown that a comedic world has much to say that
is of true theological significance. Recognizing the value of much traditional Fielding
research the author departs from its inherent determinism which he believes stifles more
fruitful opportunities for interdisciplinary dialogue. Key to his desire to engage the comedic
in this conversation he introduces the interpretative tool of misplacement. By this is meant a
continuous parting with the ineffable - the perpetual recognition that in comedic writing there
is always a fragile sense of the other. Setting Fielding's fiction alongside works of
contemporary philosophical theology and postmodern works of fiction the author allows common
critical zones such as epistemology ethics mimesis canonicity and revelation to be
investigated. In all these areas the novel in Fielding's hands displays a powerful comic
resonance with a less deterministic theology and subverts those assumed securities regarding
the status of the individual in the world before God. Ultimately the book offers the challenge
of recognizing that the nature of the novel is inescapably theological and that theology itself
is indeed fictive.
