The object of this doctoral dissertation is a fictional oeuvre where deep religiousness is slyly embedded within bold anticlericalism, where stark realism artfully lurks within boundless imagination. It is the fantasy trilogy, His Dark Materials (abbreviated as HDM), written by Philip Pullman (19 October 1946- ). Although Pullman has been severely criticised by conservative Christian groups for radically revising the Judeo-Christian myth of the Fall of Man and the death of ‘God,’ yet the fictive world he created in his three novels is far from atheism. The overall aim of my dissertation is to prove that HDM is a deeply (re-)enchanted literary work of art. This is the first hypothesis: I aim to prove that as the holistic principle permeates the structure of HDM, the other, implicit theme of Pullman’s trilogy is the ambition to re-unite. As the second hypothesis, I wish to prove that with its implicit theme (the ambition to re-unite), HDM embodies a criticism of/a reaction to not only mainstream Christian religion, but also alternative spiritualities. As the third hypothesis, I claim that because of the re-enchanted principle of holism, Pullman’s fantasy repeats the conventions of religious fantasy genre
