From: Commonweal | Date: November 17, 1995| Author: Worth, Robert | COPYRIGHT 1995 Commonweal Foundation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group.Copyright information

Satan is dead, and with him we have lost the belief in evil and sin that might serve as a moral anchor in our sprawling, postideological world. So goes the popular wisdom, and Andrew Delbanco offers it up as the lesson of American literary history in his new book, The Death of Satan. We are more surrounded by images of violence and horror than ever before, according to Delbanco, yet we have lost the ability to talk meaningfully about them. This is no small matter because the idea of ...