The Gospel according to St John, often regarded as the most important of the gospels in the account it gives of Jesus' life and divinity, received close attention from nineteenth-century biblical scholars and prompted a significant response in the arts. This original interdisciplinary study of the cultural afterlife of John in Victorian Britain places literature, the visual arts and music in their religious context. Discussion of the Evangelist, the Gospel and its famous prologue is followed by an examination of particular episodes that are unique to John. Michael Wheeler's research reveals the depth of biblical influence on British culture and on individuals such as Ruskin, Holman Hunt and Tennyson. He makes a significant contribution to the understanding of culture, religion and scholarship in the period.
Greatly to be welcomed. This meticulously researched and richly documented account provides fresh insights into theological controversy and social prejudice and should be read by all serious students of the Victorian Church.Greatly to be welcomed. Richard Sharp The Rev. Dr John Hunt (1827-1907) was not a typical clergyman in the Victorian Church of England. He was Scottish, of lowly birth, and lacking both social connections and private means. He was also a witty and fluent intellectual, whose publications stood alongside the most eminent of his peers during a period when theology was being redefined in the light of Darwin’s Origin of Species and other radical scientific advances. Hunt attracted notoriety and conflict as well as admiration and respect: he was the subject of articles in Punch and in the wider press concerning his clandestine dissection of a foetus in the crypt of a City church, while his Essay on Pantheism was proscribed by the Roman Catholic Church. He had many skirmishes with incumbents, both evangelical and catholic, and was dismissed from several of his curacies. This book analyses his career in London and St Ives (Cambs.) through the lens of his autobiographical narrative, Clergymen Made Scarce (1867). David Yeandle has examined a little-known copy of the text that includes manuscript annotations by Eliza Hunt, the wife of the author, which offer unique insight into the many anonymous and pseudonymous references in the text. A Victorian Curate: A Study of the Life and Career of the Rev. Dr John Hunt is an absorbing personal account of the corruption and turmoil in the Church of England at this time. It will appeal to anyone interested in this history, the relationship between science and religion in the nineteenth century, or the role of the curate in Victorian England.
This text explores how science became increasingly important in 19th century British culture and how the systematic study of insects permitted entomologists to engage with the most pressing questions of Victorian times: the nature of God, mind, and governance, and the origins of life.
From Henry David Thoreau to Bill McKibben, critics and philosophers have sought to demonstrate how a life without constant growth might still be rich and satisfying. Yet one crucial episode in the history of sustainability has been largely forgotten. "Green Victorians" recovers the story of a small circle of men and women led by political economist and art critic John Ruskin. "Green Victorians" explores how Ruskin s most enthusiastic followers turned his theory into practice in a series of ambitious local projects ranging from painting, hand-weaving, and wood-working to gardening, archaeology, story-telling, and children s education. This is a lively yet unsettling story, for while those in Ruskin s experimental community established a thriving handicraft industry and protected the Lake District from over-development, they paid a price. Richly illustrated, "Green Victorians" breaks new ground by connecting the ideas and practices of Ruskin s utopian community to the problems of ethical consumption then and now. "
Far from the hushed restraint we associate with the Victorians, their world pulsated with sound. This book shows how, in more ways than one, Victorians were hearing things. John Picker draws upon literary and scientific works to recapture the Victorian sense of aural discovery.
The Victorians were obsessed with death, bereavement, and funeral rituals, and speculated vigorously on the nature of heaven, hell, and divine judgment. This popular abridgement of Michael Wheeler's award-winning Death and the Future Life in Victorian Literature and Theology looks at the literary implications of Victorian views of death and the life beyond, and recreates vividly the fear and hope embodied in the theological positions of the novelists and poets of the age. Now accessible to a wide readership, Heaven, Hell, and the Victorians offers a wide-ranging and attractively illustrated cultural history of nineteenth-century religious experience, belief, and language in the face of death.
`Simply a great work of reference. Future scholars will wonder how anybody managed without the Wellesley Index. It will quietly change the whole nature of Victorian studies.' Christopher Ricks, New Statesman `It is now impossible to think of Victorian literary and historical studies without the benefit of it ... this is a very remarkable achievement indeed ... the complete set will be a monument to the Houghtons foresight, pertinacity and skill.' TLS
In her study of Charlotte Brontë, Harriet Martineau and George Eliot, Lesa Scholl shows how three Victorian women writers broadened their capacity for literary professionalism by participating in translation and other conventionally derivative activities such as editing and reviewing early in their careers. In the nineteenth century, a move away from translating Greek and Latin Classical texts in favour of radical French and German philosophical works took place. As England colonised the globe, Continental philosophies penetrated English shores, causing fissures of faith, understanding and cultural stability. The influence of these new texts in England was unprecedented, and Eliot, Brontë and Martineau were instrumental in both literally and figuratively translating these ideas for their English audience. Each was transformed by access to foreign languages and cultures, first through the written word and then by travel to foreign locales, and the effects of this exposure manifest in their journalism, travel writing and fiction. Ultimately, Scholl argues, their study of foreign languages and their translation of foreign-language texts, nations and cultures enabled them to transgress the physical and ideological boundaries imposed by English middle-class conventions.
First published in 1965, this book explores Oxford in the Victorian period, providing accounts of the development in the constitutional organisation of the city and the political standing and the studies of the university. Employing a wide range of original material, this work paints a detailed and fascinating picture of nineteenth century Oxford. This work will be of interest to those studying the history of universities and Victorian cities.
Drawing together themes in Church of England history, the activity of second-generation leaders of the Oxford Movement, social change, secularization, and Victorian recreation, The Church of England and Victorian Oxford explains the difficulties faced by Churchmen who tried to use self-improvement and leisure to accomplish religious goals.
