In the past few decades, scholars of Romanticism have challenged a long-standing secularization thesis that generally considers Romanticism as a departure from religious thought and feeling. During the height of 20th-century Romantic scholarship, the Romantic movement was seen to represent a period of secularization, which M.H. Abrams characterized as the reinterpretation and assimilation of religious ideas into “constitutive elements in a world view founded on secular premises” (Natural Supernaturalism, Norton, 1971, 13–14). Promulgated largely by Abrams, Earl Wasserman, Northrop Frye, and other mid-20th century Romantic critics, this perspective saw Romanticism as a denatured form of religion, dependent upon, yet subordinate to, traditional religious orthodoxy. Recent scholarship reframes Romantic literature as a dynamic expression of religion, albeit one that is often independent of institutional belief, or as engaging creatively with religion. These new perspectives highlight three major approaches within Romantic scholarship by evaluating Romanticism against normative religious standards, understanding Romanticism as a form of secularism, and viewing Romanticism as an intrinsic spiritual sensibility.
The Cambridge Companion to British Romanticism and Religion, edited by Jeffrey Barbeau, offers a comprehensive and diverse acknowledgement of the complexity and variety of religious influences in Romantic literature. The collection moves beyond the binary of secular and religious to reveal new ways of studying the interplay of religious ideas in Romantic literature. In some respect the collection of essays is interventional: it counters the tired assumption that Romantic writers outright rejected religion. Barbeau, in his “Introduction,” argues that such an assertion “is misleading, at best, in discounting historical and religious particularity in a literature very much of its times. . . . Religious ideas and traditions permeate the age, for Romanticism was an age of increasing pluralism” (9). The seventeen essays employ different methods and are written by scholars from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds. The collection organizes the essays under three major headings: (1) historical developments, (2) literary forms, and (3) disciplinary connections.
The first three essays of part 1, “Historical Developments,” consider the three major forms of Christian practice in Britain: the Church of England, Protestant Dissent, and Roman Catholicism. Frances Knight, Felicity James, and Michael Tomko address these traditions respectively to reveal how they negotiated and inspired engagement with the Romantic-era diversity of religious expression. The essays show the religio-political investments of these traditions impelling literary engagement and providing a vocabulary that infuses both political discourse and Romantic-era literature. All three scholars are interested in how these respective religions grappled with several intellectual challenges posed by the Enlightenment and negotiated the rising surplus of religious diversity and expression.
The following three essays address Romantic engagements with non-Christian religions (Judaism, Islam, and Hinduism) along with a fourth chapter on atheism. Michael Scrivener’s essay titled “Judaism” is largely historical, focusing more on Romantic-era Jewish writers than British Romantic literature proper. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Byron, and Walter Scott are only briefly mentioned. Humayun Ansari’s “Islam,” Nishi Pulugurtha’s “Hinduism,” and Martin Priestman’s “Atheism” are more interested in the literary and philosophical engagements of Romantic writers. Religious engagements by more canonical Romantics—such as William Blake, Robert Southey, Coleridge, William Wordsworth, Mary Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats, Byron—are illuminated; and several of the more neglected Romantic writers—such as Thomas Moore (Irish poet and Byron’s literary executor), Elixabeth Hamilton, Emma Roberts, and Anna Maria Jones—are cast in relief.
The second part of the volume focuses on literary forms. In chapter 9, “Poetry,” Jeffrey Eichboden examines how the Romantic literature was both indebted to and anticipated by Robert Lowth’s lectures on the poetry of Old Testament scriptures and other Eastern texts. Eichboden illuminates the creative connections between Blake and Hebrew poetry; Thomas Moore and Arabic literature; and Byron and Armenian religious life. Miriam Elizabeth Burstein’s chapter 10, “The Novel,” considers how questions of religious belief—such as ascending evangelicalism, Roman Catholicism, and imperial religion—were “omnipresent” in Romantic-era novels (161). Frederick Burwick centers the stage as a place where Romantic-era religious and cultural questions are enacted through the portrayal of moral and spiritual dilemmas. Jeffrey Barbeau discusses the significance of sermons and lectures as the nexuses of religion, education, literature, and rhetoric. In this chapter, Coleridge, William Hazlitt, important abolitionists, and evangelical preachers make their rightful appearances, but so do often-neglected women speakers, such as Eliza Sharpe and Sarah Mallet. Amy Cullens considers various forms of biographical and autobiographical writing and emphasizes the hybridity of this genre with its conflux of diaries, journals, letters, and biographies, as well as the tangled interplay between individual lives and religious movements.
Part 3, “Disciplinary Connections,” begins with a comprehensive chapter titled “Philosophy” by James Vigus, who shows how the Romantic engagement with philosophy contributed to the religious life of Romantic-era and Victorian writers. The following chapter, “Science,” by Rosalind Powell picks up the thread of natural philosophy by highlighting how scientific advancements were consistently read through a religious lens, informing belief and practice as well as collective visions for utopian society. Deirdre Coleman focuses on the shared rhetoric of religious and political discourse and reveals how the schemes and tropes of political discourse were invested with biblical imagery. Martin V. Clarke explores an important, often-neglected aspect of Romantic culture by considering how musical practices in church and various religious movements reflect intellectual and spiritual engagements with music. The final chapter, “Painting” by Martin Myrone, challenges the historiographical tendency to understate the role of religion in Romantic-era art, a tendency that is common in the prevalent secularization narratives within Romanticist scholarship. This chapter provides a nuanced view of the interdependence of religion within art history.
The collection serves as a benchmark of new directions in the study of British Romanticism and religion. A rich range of perspectives is represented. The book generously highlights important works while also illuminating important neglected figures. There is perhaps no other book on the subject to take such an inclusive and informed perspective on British Romantic art and religion. This collection will be invaluable for any student or scholar studying any aspect of Romantic-era thought and culture.
Adam Walker is a teaching fellow in the English Department at Harvard University.
Adam Walker
Date Of Review:
October 12, 2024
