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Theology and the Victorian Novel |
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Reclaiming the Victorian novel from presumed secularity.
Religious issues played a prominent role in Victorian England and had a profound influence on the culture of that period. In Theology and the Victorian Novel, J. Russell Perkin shows that even the apparently secular world of the realist novel is shaped by the theological debates of its time.
Beginning with a wide-ranging introduction that explains why a theological reading of Victorian fiction is both rewarding and timely, Perkin also addresses religion's return to prominence in the twenty-first century, confounding earlier predictions of its imminent demise. Chapters on William Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Charlotte Yonge, Anthony Trollope, George Eliot, and Thomas Hardy are followed by a concluding discussion of Mary Ward and Walter Pater that relates Pater's Marius the Epicurean to postmodern theology and shows how it remains a religious classic for our own time.
Informed by extensive knowledge of the religion and culture of the period, Theology and the Victorian Novel significantly alters the way that the Victorian novel should be read.
Beginning with a wide-ranging introduction that explains why a theological reading of Victorian fiction is both rewarding and timely, Perkin also addresses religion's return to prominence in the twenty-first century, confounding earlier predictions of its imminent demise. Chapters on William Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Charlotte Yonge, Anthony Trollope, George Eliot, and Thomas Hardy are followed by a concluding discussion of Mary Ward and Walter Pater that relates Pater's Marius the Epicurean to postmodern theology and shows how it remains a religious classic for our own time.
Informed by extensive knowledge of the religion and culture of the period, Theology and the Victorian Novel significantly alters the way that the Victorian novel should be read.
Details
273 Pages, 6 x 9
ISBN 9780773536067
November 2009
Formats: Cloth, eBook
"Theology and the Victorian Novel is exceptionally well-written: fluent, thoughtful, lucid, modest, and highly readable." Catherine Harland, Queen's University
"Perkin's central thesis, which pushes back against the unexamined secularism of so much modern criticism of Victorian literature, is highly original and very convincing." Stephen Prickett, Regius Professor Emeritus, University of Glasgow and Honorary Professor, University of Kent at Canterbury
"Perkin's central thesis, which pushes back against the unexamined secularism of so much modern criticism of Victorian literature, is highly original and very convincing." Stephen Prickett, Regius Professor Emeritus, University of Glasgow and Honorary Professor, University of Kent at Canterbury
J. Russell Perkin is professor of English, Saint Mary's University, and the author of A Reception-History of George Eliot's Fiction.
Theology and the Victorian Novel
J. Russell Perkin
Table of Contents
IX
INTRODUCTION: The Victorian Book of Life 3
ONE
The Implied Theology of Vanity Fair 31
TWO
Charlotte Brontë’s Shirley as a Novel of Religious Controversy 55
THREE
“Gleams from a Brighter World”: Charlotte Mary Yonge’s Tractarian Poetics 75
FOUR
“From St Paul to Pecksniff”: Trollope’s Bertrams and Arnold’s God 103
FIVE
“Feeling’s a Sort o’ Knowledge”: George Eliot’s Religion of Humanity 124
SIX
Thomas Hardy’s Apocryphal Gospels 159
SEVEN
Literature and Dogma: Mary Augusta Ward’s Robert Elsmere and Walter Pater’s Marius the Epicurean 196
NOTES 225
WORKS CITED 243
INDEX 265
J. Russell Perkin
Table of Contents
IX
INTRODUCTION: The Victorian Book of Life 3
ONE
The Implied Theology of Vanity Fair 31
TWO
Charlotte Brontë’s Shirley as a Novel of Religious Controversy 55
THREE
“Gleams from a Brighter World”: Charlotte Mary Yonge’s Tractarian Poetics 75
FOUR
“From St Paul to Pecksniff”: Trollope’s Bertrams and Arnold’s God 103
FIVE
“Feeling’s a Sort o’ Knowledge”: George Eliot’s Religion of Humanity 124
SIX
Thomas Hardy’s Apocryphal Gospels 159
SEVEN
Literature and Dogma: Mary Augusta Ward’s Robert Elsmere and Walter Pater’s Marius the Epicurean 196
NOTES 225
WORKS CITED 243
INDEX 265
