The widespread recognition of the deeply spiritual character of modern literature has roused considerable debate as to the nature of the spiritual experience in an author's work and, more specifically, his Christian commitment. This study is an examination of the stages of the spiritual life - the purgative way, the illuminative way, the unitive way - in certain of the writings G.M.Hopkins, James Joyce, T.S.Eliot and Hart Crane, four modern authors who clearly wrote in a spiritual frame of reference.