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Over the course of my academic career, I have maintained that Christian humanism holds the radical middle

between extremes that are not friendly to literary culture.

But of course, you have not suffered the

misfortune of accompanying me on my academic career. And since that is the case, some explanation

of my terms is probably in order. To begin then, what is this mysterious entity called Christian humanism?

It's important to note the word humanism wasn't used during the Renaissance.

It was invented in the 19th century and used in various competing ways.

If we take the word to refer to work done by scholars during the Renaissance, especially those who pursued a grand synthesis of classical and modern knowledge, we are on solid ground, or at least we are not at sea.

We have something to build on. The later term, Christian humanism, admits of the same historical considerations. Its

usages vary across disciplines. Like humanism itself, its scope and variety, resist the effort

to corral it inside the bounds of a single definition. Having no such definition in hand, I can do no better than to present Christian

humanism as an interpretive framework and a work in progress. I apply it to Christian authors,

whose historical consciousness reaches back to the ancients and whose work crosses sectarian boundaries.

I do not automatically consider a contemporary Christian or Catholic writer to be a Christian humanist.

Such writers may appeal to Catholics or to Protestants or both,

but unless a Christian author can appeal to non-Christian readers, he or she is too sectarian to meet my requirements.

In the case of Shakespeare, his Christianity is more often doubted than his broad appeal.

I take the flip side of the argument. His broad appeal is based on his Christianity. Whether we have in mind his handling of pagan ideas or his attention to late breaking

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