Fortress Press

What is beauty? What is the soul? What facilitates our apprehension of beauty in ourselves, others, and the world, and what impairs it? In The Beauty of Souls, Mark S. M. Scott explores these questions using the tools of both philosophy of religion and literature. He focuses on Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Marilynne Robinson's novels and essays, gleaning from them important insights into the nature and reality of human encounters with beauty.

Scott argues for the theological relevance and spiritual application of Robinson's work to the perennial, human journey of soul-discovery and soul-formation. Robinson serves as a guide to questing souls. With chapters excavating Robinson's own conception of beauty and beauty's relation to the soul, Scott traces the themes of perception, contemplation, self-discovery, loss, brokenness, wonder, and redemption through Robinson's magisterial Gilead saga.

The Beauty of Souls dialogues with scriptural, theological, and philosophical interlocutors to illuminate Robinson's unique vision. It shows that Robinson's fiction does more than simply display and evoke beauty; it offers a philosophical-theological framework to discover and express the beauty of our own souls.