SOURCE: Atkins, G. Douglas. “J. Hillis Miller, Deconstruction, and the Recovery of Transcendence.” Notre Dame English Journal 13, no. 1 (fall 1980): 51-63.

In the following essay, Atkins explores the charge of lack of spiritual concern leveled against deconstructionist critics, pointing out that their writings reinterpret rather than negate questions of the spiritual.

Following publication of Charles Dickens: The World of His Novels (1958), The Disappearance of God (1963), and Poets of Reality (1965), J. Hillis Miller became known as one of the most knowledgeable and articulate spokesmen for religion in modern literature. These works, and others, not only testify powerfully to Miller's interest as a literary critic in religious questions, but they also reveal his own deep religious convictions. A member of what was originally The Society for Religion in Higher Education, Miller has frequently contributed to conferences dealing with the growing interest in literature and religion, and his work has been reprinted...