Under the Mercy: Charles Williams and the Holy Grail

T. S.Eliot writes of Charles Williams as "unclassifiable." Therein lies the scholarly challenge which Dr. Peirano faces in this remarkable book. Peirano demonstrates an incisive intuition for Williams' poetry and a mastery of Williams' genius couched in his poetic Arthurian mythology. The author pulls aside the supposed veil of obscurity that, for too long, has discouraged all but a few from confronting the liveliness and vivacity of Charles Williams' imagination. This is a highly commendable book. It is well written and documented. It should be read. -Dr. James H. Pain, D. Phil., former Dean, Caspersen School of Graduate Studies and Pfeiffer Professor of Religion, Drew University Peirano demonstrates through detailed analysis of...how the Grail Quest is emblematic of Williams' seminal understanding of the doctrines of Co-Inherence, Exchange, and Substitution, involving each person in the Quest in a web of relationships that spans space and time, a web in which one person bears the burdens of another, even to the point of taking the place of someone else through the dangers and difficulties of this mortal life, in order to attain the life of the saints in light. -Rev. Nancy E. Topolewski, Ph.D., Assistant Editor, Methodist History