|
|
| |
Religion and the Contours of the Romantic-Era
Novel
Daniel Schierenbeck, University of Central
Missouri
-
At first blush, a course on religion may not
appear as glamorous or provocative as a Gothic
novel course or as attuned to popular culture
as a seminar on Austen. In my experience at a
regional, state university, though, I have
found that students generally are deeply
interested in religious subjects. I can only
assume that such interest would also be
generated at a range of institutions,
especially at religious institutions, where the
course might even be tailored differently.
Furthermore, students who have lived through
the events in our recent history are familiar
with the intimate connection between religion
and politics. Topics of religious enthusiasm
and fanaticism weigh heavily in matters of
international policy, and the importance of the
Evangelical Christian Right has been in the
headlines since the 2004 Presidential election.
Engaging students on the topic of religious
controversy, then, can help them to bridge some
of the historical difference between now and
the Romantic-era, but these religious debates
also clarify distinct historical, cultural, and
political differences between these eras.
Moreover, this course also situates
Romantic-era fiction within a growing field of
criticism that deals with the importance of
religion for studying this period's
literature.[1] The course I outline here, geared
toward senior-level undergraduates, is
organized around representations of religious
enthusiasm and toleration. In doing so, I
explicitly draw upon the recent work of Jon Mee
and Mark Canuel, and I will indicate below how
I integrate these secondary texts into the
course. By exploring such issues within these
novels, I hope to give students a better sense
of how a range of novels can respond to a
specific, complex topic—a topic that
reverberates through and indeed structures
debates on gender, politics, colonialism, and a
host of other issues.
-
At the beginning of a Romantic fiction
course, students benefit from some historical
overview of the period, so I sketch the various
revolutions at work in British society
(political, industrial, aesthetic). However, it
is also helpful to provide an introduction to
the history and politics of the Anglican Church
to heighten students' awareness of religion's
social and political role throughout British
history.[2] This survey of important religious
controversies can be supplemented with a focus
on particular events, such as the Gordon Riots
and the Church and King Riots, which allow
students to understand the interconnection of
religion and politics within the revolutionary
context of this era. Though Robert M. Ryan's
Romantic Reformation centers on
Romantic-era poetry, the first portion of
chapter one (13-30) provides a useful
supplemental reading. Ryan highlights the
Dissenters' repeal campaigns and the
evangelical revival and situates these
movements in a framework that sketches how they
emerged historically and became part of the
revolutionary debates. Students might also
benefit from "Christianity in England,
1790-1830," a short chapter in Alec R. Vidler's
The Church in an Age of Revolution
that provides an overview of contemporary
religious denominations. The first week of
class is also a good time to introduce students
to Mark Canuel's treatment of the religious
toleration (12). Chapter one of Religion,
Toleration, and British Writing is
particularly helpful because Canuel, like Ryan,
also provides historical perspective, showing
how "[t]he spirit of toleration . . . could be
viewed as a series of legislative enactments
extending from the Act of Toleration in 1689 to
(and beyond) the repeal of the Test and
Corporation Acts and Catholic Emancipation in
1828 and 1829" (12).[3] Students need to be familiar with
how issues facing Catholics, Anglicans, and the
various Dissenting dominations have political
ramifications. It may take students time to
grasp fully the complexities of these issues,
but by focusing on these important acts and by
using a historical framework, students can
begin to understand how political issues were
marked, defined, and regulated through
religious difference.
-
After a brief foray into the historical
background, students can begin to investigate
how authors approach these issues, especially
in regard to their depictions of religious
enthusiasm and toleration. A good novel to
start with is Charles Lucas's The Infernal
Quixote (1801), a typical anti-Jacobin
work. M.O. Grenby's introduction to the
Broadview edition firmly establishes Lucas's
anti-Jacobin style and substance, but Grenby
also touches upon the idea that The
Infernal Quixote can be viewed as a
religious novel (15-16). Expanding on this
point, I find that situating Lucas's novel
within the framework of religious enthusiasm
and toleration allows students to see the
deeper contexts of conservative fiction. Such
background enables students to consider how a
novel's religious arguments may provide for
different, and perhaps broader, categories
through which to view Romantic-era fiction.
Indeed, many novels are not easily categorized
as Jacobin or anti-Jacobin, conservative or
radical, but actually map out positions that
run across this continuum. One of the most
famous set pieces of this novel, Rattle's
"Double Oration," provides a focal point that
structures discussion of how this novel deals
with unregulated religious enthusiasm and the
utopian schemes of the new philosophers. Rattle
gives a speech that, by substituting certain
set phrases, could be used as a rousing oration
for either religious enthusiasts (read
Methodists) or atheistical democrats. I flesh
out this debate about enthusiasm by providing
students excerpts from the first two chapters
of Jon Mee's Romanticism, Enthusiasm and
Regulation. Chapter one of Mee's book is
helpful, for he traces the "discourse of
enthusiasm" (25) through the eighteenth century
and discusses its philosophical, aesthetic, and
religious deployments. Mee's second chapter is
especially relevant for a discussion of Lucas's
novel, since Mee traces how enthusiasm was
deployed during the revolutionary debates of
the 1790s and provides particular attention to
"the problem of enthusiasm in radical and
reforming circles" (83) such as the
Corresponding Societies.[4] Mee thus provides context for
reading Lucas's fictional account of a
corresponding society meeting. Vivid accounts
of religious radicalism in such debating
societies can also be found in Iain McCalman's
Radical Underworld, another potential
supplement (especially his brief first
chapter). Such historical accounts provide a
deeper context for understanding Lucas's novel,
but they also can give students an interesting
detour into the fascinating radical subculture
(and its religion) that Lucas was trying to
guard against.
-
Lucas's insertion of the "Double Oration"
into the text, though, also points to the
historical sources of the influential Anglican
Evangelical Movement. Anglican Evangelicals
sought to rescue religion from the rational
principles and deistic tendencies associated
with the Enlightenment and French Revolution,
but they also wanted to distance their more
emotional "religion of the heart" from the
Methodists' enthusiasm. Thus, Anglican
Evangelicals emphasized the importance of
manners and taste as outward verifications of
internally self-regulating mechanisms that
attempted to prevent their religion from being
perceived as lower-class and potentially
radical and instantiated it as a deeply
middle-class religion. In his introduction,
Grenby rightly points to the Evangelical
movement as a possible explanation of Lucas's
choice of a lower-class hero, Wilson Wilson,
and an aristocratic villain, James Marauder
(15). Indeed, the Evangelicals sought to reform
both the lower-classes and upper-classes in
order to effect social and political change,
and Wilson represents a pious lower-class
subject, while Marauder represents the debased
aristocracy in need of reform. This context can
be fleshed out a bit more with excerpts from
Hannah More's An Estimate of the Religion
of the Fashionable World or Thoughts
on the Manners of the Great or William
Wilberforce's Practical View. The
first two chapters of More's Fashionable
World are brief but do a good job of
showing the Anglican Evangelical emphasis on
practicing religious principles, especially
among the upper classes. Such context is
important, for a similar emphasis on the
principles of Christianity is woven throughout
Lucas's novel. Wilson, for example, is able to
convert Hamben to these principles through
argumentation but also through example, such as
refusing to duel Marauder (More herself wrote
against dueling). Through the Anglican
Evangelical context, I invite students to
consider the ways in which the characters and
their religious points of view represent
specific class issues and how Lucas's emphasis
on religion helps to define a specifically
middle-class morality.
-
What is also striking, though, about
Wilson's arguments for Christianity is that he
refuses to defend the verbal inspiration of
every word of the Bible. Instead, he places his
emphasis on the New Testament, and especially
the life of Christ, in order to defend the
spirit of Christianity. Such a view
endorsed by the novel's hero, especially in a
novel by a clergyman, is interesting because
these views can be seen in much more radical
thinkers and authors, like Percy Shelley, who
saw Christ only as an example of a wonderful
individual. This novel's view of verbal
inspiration could be usefully contrasted with
West's Tale of the Times (1799).
West's novel engages the issue of verbal
inspiration through the villain, Fitzosborne,
who attacks the authenticity of the Old
Testament with arguments from Higher Criticism.
West's hero, Henry Powerscourt, though, defends
inspiration and revealed religion by using the
concept of providence, which she employs
throughout to provide readers with a
conservative way of reading the French
Revolution. Yet she also justifies tenets of
political economy through providence. She
argues for an active sense of charity among the
gentry and against government interference in
poor relief, thus also calling for a reform of
the upper classes but in a different manner
than Lucas. West's novel, unfortunately, is not
widely available, so it might be best covered
by an individual research project or by a group
report. This text does raise, though, the issue
of how to integrate such novels in a course and
highlights the need for affordable editions of
more Romantic-era novels.[5]
-
Lucas's novel is critical, or at least
guarded, about religious enthusiasm. For
example, Philip Harrety is an enthusiast who is
later converted to a more moderate religion.
Yet, this novel also tackles the theme of
religious toleration through Marauder's
involvement with the Irish Rebellion of 1798, a
subject that occupies most of volume three.
Marauder's father had turned Protestant in
order to escape proscription under the Test and
Corporation Acts, but his uncle remains
Catholic. Marauder himself turns Catholic after
his father dies, but only to try to ingratiate
himself with his uncle. Indeed, Marauder's
religious allegiance is governed solely by
expedience. Later in the novel, he is able to
parlay his Catholicism to political advantage
as he enters into the Irish Rebellion. His
sights are only set on financial rewards and
personal ambition—he wants to be the
Cromwell of Ireland—but he claims to be
for Catholic Emancipation. Lucas's choice of
depicting Marauder as one of the leaders of the
United Irishmen raises interesting questions.
Is he arguing that these claims for religious
rights are just masquerades for political
ambition? How may his representations square
with the ideas espoused by Edmund Burke in his
revolutionary debate with the Dissenter Richard
Price? Through Wilson, Lucas presents defenses
of the established church, but the narrator
also declares, "If Religion were left entirely
to herself, if every one were to propose
articles for his own faith, and if these
strange medleys were to be tolerated by the
legislature, few vestiges would remain of the
original institution of Christ" (225). Students
can be encouraged to investigate what Lucas's
precise claims are for the social role of
religion and could compare them with the
definition and significance of religious
toleration that Canuel outlines. Furthermore, I
prompt students to consider the following: what
does the fact that Lucas, a clergyman, is using
a novel to make these arguments tell us about
the changing status and respectability of the
novel or its use as a political/social
tool?
-
Focusing on the religious arguments of
Elizabeth Hamilton's Translations of the
Letters of a Hindoo Rajah (1796) also
allows students to view this anti-Jacobin novel
in a broader context. Though Hamilton presents
new philosophers as ridiculous figures towards
the end of volume two—a standard attack
method of anti-Jacobins—her novel is more
complex than a simple, conservative polemic.
One particular focus that allows students to
engage this novel's complexity is an attempt to
sift through her multi-level ironies,
challenging them to define what in particular
Hamilton is satirizing. As students dig into
the text to answer this question, easy
distinctions, such as conservative or radical,
break down. For example, Hamilton's treatment
of female education has great affinity with a
radical writer such as Mary Wollstonecraft. It
is key, though, that in the novel she argues
for a better education for women from a
Christian theological position: if women are
the spiritual equals of men, then they should
not be given a frivolous education in female
accomplishments, nor should the end of
education be to make them objects of beauty for
men.[6] The ways in which conservative
authors use religion to enhance women's role in
society can be brought out by a supplemental
secondary reading. For example, Anne K.
Mellor's chapter on Hannah More from
Mothers of the Nation describes how
she was able to parlay her evangelical
religious views into a means of reforming the
nation. Finally, Hamilton's religious position
and conservative stance allows her,
paradoxically, to become a successful female
author, and this conundrum deserves attention,
especially in regard to how religion can be
used to establish female narrative authority.
Lisa Wood tackles this very paradox of how "the
antirevolutionary text by women must be
authorial, thereby necessarily transgressing
its own ideological limits of the feminine"
(86). Her chapter on narrative authority in
anti-revolutionary female authors thus is quite
a useful supplement for students on this
issue.
-
Hamilton's arguments about female education
also point to the split between religious
belief and practice that informs the entire
novel. Hamiton's narrator, the eponymous Hindu
Rajah Zaarmilla, becomes deeply interested in
the virtues of Christianity through his
conversations with Captain Percy, who is
modeled on Hamilton's brother Charles, who
served with the East India Company. From
Percy's descriptions, Zaarmilla sees
Christianity as a religion of peace, kindness,
and liberty that is well suited to the needs of
the state. Sheermal, though, tells Zaarmilla
about the split between religious tenets and
practice he has witnessed in England, and later
Zaarmilla himself goes to England to find out
how Christianity informs its social and
religious practice. Hamilton thus uses
Zaarmilla to highlight the difference between
Christian doctrine and practice. I assign
chapter six of More's An Estimate of the
Religion of the Fashionable World along
with this novel, for here she argues that a
stranger who would observe fashionable life in
England would never think that it was a
Christian country. Hamilton's foregrounding of
such a split between doctrine and practice can
be seen as quite conservative, since, as
mentioned above, Anglican Evangelicals like
Wilberforce and More argued strenuously for a
reform of manners and an active, practical
Christianity. It is a bit dangerous, though, to
paint a group like the Evangelicals as a
monolithic, conservative group. Gerald Newman
and Mellor, for example, have argued for a more
complex view of view of Evangelicalism (another
reason for including Mellor's chapter on More
as a supplemental reading). Also, Evangelicals,
along with some radical authors, advocated the
abolition of the slave trade. Thus, Hamilton's
use of religion in this novel is not
automatically nor simply conservative.
-
Certainly, Hamilton satirizes the hypocrisy
of a religious nation that does not read the
Bible, but she does not satirize the concept of
religious toleration. In the preface, Hamilton
extols the virtues of Hinduism and its "mild
and tolerating spirit" (68), a spirit that
meshes well with its civil function, and she
contrasts Hinduism with the Muslims' "fury of
fanaticism" (68) and "intolerant zeal" (69).
This specific comparison can be seen, of
course, in part, as a justification and defense
of Warren Hastings, and students would benefit
from background information on Hastings, the
development of the East India Company, or the
Rohilla War. In particular, selections from
Thomas Macaulay or James Mill's The History
of British India are helpful for students
in clarifying for students how colonial policy
had changed throughout the nineteenth century
and how Hamilton supports a "defense of the
version of colonialism which will work only if
the English practice the Christian tolerance
and mercy they preach" (Perkins and Russell
29).
-
Hamilton's assertion of the importance of
religious toleration in a colonial context,
though, also can lead students to investigate
how this position reflects back on domestic
policy. Such a viewpoint allows students to see
Hamilton in a more progressive light. Rather
than advocating a solid Church and King
position, like West or Lucas, Hamilton
advocates a much more tolerant position, one
that places her in a similar stance to radical
Dissenters such as Joseph Priestley or Anna
Barbauld. In Hamilton's novel, the British
presence in India and their defeat of the
Muslims allow the Hindus religious freedom, but
the logical question is whether such toleration
would work at home in England. Thus, the Hindu
religion and practice and its potential as a
state religion appear to come off better than
Christianity, at least better than a narrowly
defined, intolerant Christianity. Indeed,
Hamilton's image of different religions
mingling in Calcutta (167) seems to be almost
ideal, but such mingling stems from Hindu
rather than Christian tolerance (though there
is colonial tolerance of Hindu religious
tolerance). Furthermore, admirable characters
such as Dr. Severan talk about the "pure
precepts of Christianity" (272) as
distinguished from the established church, and
the Denbeighs do not teach their children the
dogmas of any particular sect but only the
Bible (289). The construction of Hamilton's
novel, as a sort of reverse travel narrative,
also deserves attention, for through it she is
able to endorse British colonial policy while
subtly questioning policies of religious
toleration in Britain itself.
-
Sydney Owenson's The Missionary
(1811) provides an interesting comparison to
Hamilton's Hindoo Rajah, yet it also
forces students to reexamine the issues of
religious intolerance that informed the Irish
Rebellion in 1798. Analyzing Owenson's
arguments about religious enthusiasm and
intolerance enables students to go back and
reassess how Lucas framed these issues in
The Infernal Quixote. Owenson, the
daughter of an Irish Catholic father and an
English Protestant mother, has a unique
perspective from which to address concerns
about religious intolerance, especially how the
Penal Laws impacted Catholics. Julia Wright's
highly useful introduction to the Broadview
edition of this novel sketches quite nicely
Owenson's concerns about religious intolerance.
Furthermore, she shows how Owenson's
representation of India functions as a way for
her to address social and political concerns in
Ireland, which could viewed as the testing
ground for Britain's colonial policy. In
particular, Wright points out how Owenson's
novel demonstrates the dangers of using
religion for colonial purposes (40-57), and
this particular view opens the text up for a
rich comparison with Hamilton's Hindoo
Rajah.
-
To help structure students' reading of this
novel, I ask them how Owenson deploys the two
poles of religious enthusiasm and toleration.
In The Missionary, religious
enthusiasm and zeal become the motivation for
Hilarion's missionary trip to India, and this
same fanaticism leads him to attempt to convert
the Hindu prophetess, Luxima. Hilarion feels
that the conversion of such a highly regarded
religious figure will lead to many more
converts among the Indians. While Owenson
presents Hilarion's attempt to convert Luxima
as a confrontation between East and West,
Hilarion is not depicted as overtly concerned
with political and colonial concerns. His
policy is driven solely by religious zeal
rather than a desire to govern India
effectively. Indeed, the tolerant nature of the
Hindu religion, which is emphasized throughout,
seems to provide the most effective method of
governing. At the end of the novel, though,
when Hilarion is subjected to the Inquisition's
auto-da-fe and Luxima attempts to commit sati,
religious zeal pushes the Indian crowd into a
rebellion. Using some of the same background
materials from Hamilton's novel, students can
examine how Owenson and Hamilton present the
idea of religious toleration as necessary
and/or helpful for Britain's colonial mission.
Also, since Owenson mentions the 1806 Vellore
Mutiny, a report on this topic, or even the
Sepoy Revolt of 1857—which sparked a
reissuing of Owenson's novel—could be
quite helpful to students in showing how these
historical events were fomented by religious
issues. Finally, while Owenson uses India for a
backdrop for these debates about religious
toleration, students can be led back to the
Irish context to see to what extent Owenson's
depiction of religious toleration comments on
Catholic Emancipation and to formulate the
particular arguments she may be forwarding.
-
While the colonial context provides students
with a rich texture for this novel, I also have
them focus on the connection between religion
and love and the similarities between Hilarion
and Luxima. Indeed, both characters are
described throughout the novel as being
consumed by zeal and enthusiasm. Luxima is so
overcome by her ardent imagination and
enthusiasm that she feels herself a prophetess
(similar to Beatrice in Mary Shelley's
Valperga, which is discussed below).
Though Hilarion baptizes Luxima, her full
conversion to his faith is not complete. This
conversion is never quite successful because
Luxima's desire to convert is driven only by
her love of Hilarion. Though Hilarion attempts
to use the language of love and passion to
convert Luxima to Christianity, they end up
instead only falling in love with each other.
While this connection between religion and love
(or even sexual desire) may not fit with the
issues of religious toleration, it certainly
captures the cultural perception of religious
enthusiasts such as the Methodists as
licentious, and it also emphasizes the danger
of religious passions. Furthermore, this focus
on love highlights that Owenson's novel, unlike
the novels of Lucas and Hamilton, embeds and
utilizes a romance plot. This particular plot
device becomes especially important, for it
foreshadows the way that authors such as Walter
Scott and Mary Shelley similarly employ the
romance plot in their novels about religious
enthusiasm.
-
Moving from Owenson to Scott foregrounds how
the romance plot can be used to mediate
political concerns. While the first two novels
of the course can be seen in the context of the
French Revolution and the religious debates
that informed and framed representations of
religious and/or revolutionary excesses,
Scott's Old Mortality (1816) can be
viewed through the political turmoil of the
1810s that led to the Peterloo Massacre.
Indeed, McCalman's Radical Underworld
provides useful context for this discussion.
Especially helpful is his chapter "Blasphemous
Chapels: The Preacher as Insurrectionary,
1818-20," for it elucidates the very real fears
that the English government had about radical
preachers' ability to mobilize the populace
toward violent action. Though Scott's novel
precedes Peterloo, I also provide students with
a brief history of this event or have students
present on this topic. Scott's novel, which is
set in the violent West of Scotland in the late
1670s, dramatizes through his depiction of the
Covenanters the potential violence of religious
enthusiasm and its connection to civil discord.
The history of the Covenanters and the Scottish
church can be summarized briefly for the
students: the Penguin edition, for example,
provides a brief historical note that is quite
useful. Or, students can just as easily present
on this topic. With their historical background
on the Anglican Church from the beginning of
the course, students in presentations are
capable of putting together this
religious/historical puzzle through their own
research.
-
Extreme Covenanters in the novel such as
Burley, Macbriar, and Meiklewrath, all
demonstrate the religious zeal dedicated to a
political cause that Lucas raised in the
Infernal Quixote. Yet Scott also
depicts members of the loyalist army,
especially Claverhouse, as just as dedicated to
their cause and just as willing to inflict
cruelty on the populace. In fact, Claverhouse
admits to the hero, Henry Morton, that he and
Burley are "both fanatics" (270), and, in the
end, Burley and Claverhouse, former
archenemies, are allies against the Glorious
Revolution. This novel can be viewed as a study
in the shared fanaticism and will to power that
infected both government agents and insurgents
during the bloody civil discord of the 1670s. I
invite students to consider the extremes of
military discipline and religious enthusiasm:
whereas military discipline reduces the
individual so far that the soldier is only an
unthinking mechanism of the army, enthusiasm
raises the importance of self too high and
leads to egoism and ambition. Indeed, it is
Burley's ambition rather than his religious
beliefs that lead him to command the
Presbyterian army, and such a depiction can be
usefully compared and contrasted with Lucas's
Marauder. Also, students can focus on the
ending of the novel, which skips ahead to after
the Glorious Revolution and points to the
problem of men such as Claverhouse and Burley
uniting to bring back James. Morton, though,
survives and thrives in this environment.
Students can analyze Morton to see how he
represents the moderate way of the Whig
succession, the basis of which are the
principles of toleration and of unity rather
than unbridled enthusiasm or rigid discipline
that leads to cruelty. Not only does Scott thus
endorse what he saw as the ameliorating effects
of Protestant rule, but he also shows the
delicate balance that needs to be maintained.
The importance of this lesson for Scott's
contemporary view of Scotland is also crucial,
especially after 1819, when civil discord
threatens Britain. Such internal discord draws
Scott back to the lessons presented in this
novel. He sees the threat inherent in
enthusiastic reformers, but even though he is
active in the volunteer dragoons, he also knows
the danger of an overly disciplined
military.
-
I move from Scott's Old Mortality
to Shelley's Valperga because Shelley,
to help explain political and historical
changes, also uses historical fiction to
highlight the violent potential in religious
discourse. Students will have already been
introduced to Mee's argument about how
Romantic-era poets attempted to regulate
enthusiasm, but I encourage them to take this a
step further and investigate how such an
attitude toward enthusiasm played a key role
during the transformation of popular radicalism
in the late 1810s and 1820s. To clarify this
context, I assign David Hume's "Of Superstition
and Enthusiasm," but I also have students read
McCalman's Radical Underworld. Chapter
Nine, "The Ultra-Radical March of Mind:
Politics, Religion, and Respectability" is
especially helpful, for it demonstrates how
during these specific decades
lower-middle-class radicals increasingly
distanced themselves from the more
revolutionary, plebeian underworld by
emphasizing "respectability and
self-improvement" (McCalman 181). Radical
preachers, such as Samuel Waddington and Robert
Wedderburn, became embarrassments as their more
respectable counterparts distanced themselves
from their enthusiastic preaching, prophetic
stance, and vulgar style (which McCalman traces
in the chapter that goes with Old
Mortality). With these readings in mind, I
invite students to consider how Shelley
embodies the concepts of enthusiasm and
superstition in Euthanasia and Beatrice in
order to critique religion's role in
nineteenth-century radical politics. Students
reflect on how her depiction of enthusiasm and
superstition in these two non-historical
characters might mediate such fears about
radicalism and may offer a solution that
demonstrates the importance of fostering
gradual reform through literature and
education.
-
In his essay, Hume associates both
enthusiasm and superstition with an ignorance
that needs to be combated by philosophy and
manners. I ask students to consider the extent
to which Shelley recognizes this dangerous
potential in superstition and enthusiasm and
how she may explore different means of
regulating the different aspects of these false
species of religion. Indeed, focusing on
Euthanasia's education is important, for
through her classical reading, she develops a
more secularized version of enthusiasm that is
directed toward the cause of liberty. Shelley
demonstrates how Euthanasia's love for
literature leads to a regulation of her
imagination and passions—a regulation
that conforms to the goals of gradual
middle-class reform. The necessity for such
regulation of enthusiasm is highlighted by the
contrasting figure of Beatrice, who represents
the dangerous and violent potential of
religious enthusiasm that stems from ignorance.
Beatrice's enthusiasm is able to subvert
priestcraft, but the crowd's reaction to her
highlights the dangers of religious enthusiasm.
Beatrice's enthusiasm, derived from ignorance
and religion, does not promote middle-class
values of restraint that lead to gradual
reform; rather it engenders only a different
sort of superstition that may foster violent
revolution. The description of Beatrice's
mother, Wilhelmina, situates her in the radical
tradition of female mysticism and messianism.
However, this association with popular culture
also connects her to prophets like Joanna
Southcott and the female Methodist preachers,
whose popularity among the lower classes
stemmed from their incorporation of folk
culture elements, such as divination and
astrology, into their religion. Though
preaching did give these women outlets to make
their voices public, they were also ridiculed
by members of polite culture for their
connection to superstition and ignorance. At
this point, I lead students back to previous
discussions about the role of religion in
women's writing that we discussed with
Hamilton, and they see firsthand the
complicated nature of these issues.
-
Finally, Beatrice's religious enthusiasm and
superstition make her especially vulnerable to
and compatible with the ambitious tyrant,
Castruccio. Popular radical leaders that
Shelley distrusted, such as William Cobbett and
Bristol Hunt, were often characterized by
middle-class radicals as tyrants, whose appeal
to religious enthusiasm and superstition
likewise seduced the lower classes and led them
to violence rather than reform. Euthanasia's
lofty enthusiasm becomes a pattern for
leadership, a model of a cultivated middle
class who will lead the radical movement toward
reform, while Beatrice represents the dangers
of violent revolution led by the religious
enthusiasm and vulgar superstition of
lower-class radicals. The comparison between
Scott's and Shelley's solutions to the
potential violence of religious enthusiasm
provides good fodder for student discussion.
The discussion can be pushed even further when
comparing how they use the romance plot
differently (Euthanasia and Castruccio never
marry while Edith Belleden and Morton wed) and
looking at how Scott's view of the past is made
to seem much less contingent than
Shelley's.
-
The Scott and Shelley novels present an
interesting sub-unit on how historical fiction
mediates political and social concerns stemming
from religious enthusiasm, but this unit could
be expanded further (or developed into a course
of its own) by examining how concerns about
religious enthusiasm and toleration are
deployed in historical fiction as anxieties
about conversion. Moreover, this concern about
conversion also may reflect upon the changing
status of the novel—how the plotting of
conversion within historical novels reflects
upon the generic changes of fiction. One of the
challenges in going this route, though, is
finding the novels for students to read. For
example, the relationship between religious
conversion and historical fiction can be found
in two pre-Scott historical novels: Anna Maria
Porter's Don Sebastian (1809) and Jane
West's The Loyalists (1812). Though
these novels are not readily available, they
may provide a potential research project for
interested students. Porter's plotting of
Sebastian's conversion is intriguing because it
points to the prominence given to religious
conversion in early historical fiction, such as
Owenson's The Missionary. Porter's
novel focuses on the iconic sixteenth-century
Portugese king, Don Sebastian, a figure who had
an historical and legendary existence, though
Porter focuses on his legend. Her Don Sebastian
survives the Battle of Al Kazar, which was
precipitated by his fanatic Catholicism. He
becomes enslaved (twice), fights for the
Persians against the Turks, travels to Brazil,
and eventually returns to Portugal but never
regains his throne. Throughout his travels,
different Moors attempt to convert him, but
eventually his wife, Kara Aziek, converts him
to Protestantism. Students could explore why
Porter rewrites Sebastian's history as romance
and how her novel depicts the important role of
a more tolerant Protestant Christianity and its
potential for a global civilizing mission. They
may also consider how her narrative may
anticipate Britain's vision of itself as an
imperial power that sought to conquer not
through force but through education and the
civilizing mission of Christianity. How does
such a view contrast and compare with Hamilton
and Owenson? Whereas in Porter's novel romance
leads to conversion, for Owenson the logic of
conversion thwarts the romance elements in the
novel. What is the ideological significance of
such differences? West's novel is also
interesting because she uses the religious and
political intolerance of the Puritan revolution
to idealize the moderation of the established
church. Indeed, her novel could be fruitfully
compared to Scott's Old Mortality or
even William Godwin's Mandeville
(1817), which also deals with the Puritan
Revolution.
-
I close the course with James Hogg's
Private Memoirs and Confessions of a
Justified Sinner (1824), and the
historical and religious context covered in
Scott's Old Mortality works well for
studying Hogg's novel. Indeed, as Douglas Mack
has argued, Hogg's novel can be seen as a
response to Scott's novel. Mack's essay, in
fact, is a good starting point for discussion
of this novel, for it forces students to
consider how his treatment of the religious
fanaticism of the Covenanters may differ from
Scott. Hogg, though, can be quite slippery for
students to pin down because the multiple
narrators that he uses increase the ironies of
this text. The editor closes his account of the
actions in the novel by concluding: "We have
heard much of the rage of fanaticism in former
days, but nothing to this" (116). Thus, in one
sense, Hogg attacks religious fanaticism of a
similar sort that Scott critiques in his novel.
The protagonist, Robert Wringhim, guided by
intolerance and fanaticism, is led to commit a
number of murders. However, it is useful for
students to compare the motives of Burley with
those of Wringhim, for whereas Burley uses
political fanaticism for political purposes,
Wringhim genuinely appears to believe his
actions are justified, especially as he is
increasingly led astray by the dubious figure
of Gil-Martin. A sharper theological edge in
Hogg's text stems from his depiction of
Wringhim's reliance on the Calvinistic doctrine
of predestination, which leads him to believe
himself one of the justified and thus above any
laws. Moreover, Hogg's portrayal of Wringhim
gains greater depth, since he shows how the
logic of misreading religious texts can lead to
acts of violence. Also, while Scott focuses on
the political and historical ramifications of
religious fanaticism in Old Mortality,
Hogg appears to situate the effects more
personally. The very fact that Hogg likewise
focuses on late seventeenth-century religious
fanaticism, however, indicates that these
issues still had political weight and
meaning.
-
One way to structure a discussion of both
Scott and Hogg is to focus on why these authors
chose to focus on this particular historical
moment and its religious controversies. What
contemporary issues made the depiction of
religious fanaticism so important to them? One
direction to steer students is to lead them to
the Scottish origin of both of these texts.
Students should investigate the extent to which
the Covenanting tradition is important to
Scottish national identity and what particular
nineteenth-century debates over the evangelical
movement or even Scottish nationality may have
contributed to Hogg's novel. How is Hogg
mediating these contemporary political issues
through his novel? Both writers tackle Scotland
in the exceptionally turbulent years before the
Act of Union. In what ways may they view the
anglicizing of the Scots over the next one
hundred years or so as positive? How can
religious belief become a peg to
national/ethnic identity? To what extent is
Scott's depiction of the Covenanters balanced?
Hogg's? To get at these issues, students can
examine the complex narrative structure of this
novel. The novel consists of three frames, and
each of these frames cast doubt upon what
precisely happened. Indeed, after the initial
account by the professional editor, we get
Wringhim's firsthand account of his life.
Though clearly some of the same atrocious acts
occurred, readers are led into a better
understanding of and sympathy for Wringhim as
they clearly see how he has been deceived or
even deceived himself. Furthermore, readers can
also see what sort of gaps, omissions, or even
contradictions may have occurred in the
supposedly objective narrator's account. This
combination of looking at formal elements to
explain ideological similarities and
differences provides students with a balance of
close reading and social and political
context.
-
From Lucas to Hogg, students in this course
tackle a variety of issues connected with the
topic of religion. Rather than seeing the
novels in this course as moving in a linear,
historical trajectory, I see them instead as
wrapping around like a spiral staircase. For
example, the context of the Irish Rebellion and
the French Revolution leads to a consideration
of how particular religious debates are deeply
connected to ideas of nationhood. When we
arrive at Hogg, it may appear that the debates
about religious enthusiasm have been
individualized and psychologized, but it is
difficult to ignore the particular role of the
Covenanters in creating a Scottish national
identity. Indeed, such implications become even
clearer if Hogg is read immediately after
Scott. Hamilton, Owenson, and Shelley all
project the problems of religious enthusiasm
and toleration to other countries, but they
appear to do so merely as a device for
commenting upon the importance of religion for
Britain's political situation as well as for
its identity, especially as a colonial power.
These novels, then, in dealing with different
religious debates and political realities, all
turn upon a concept of national identity.
Moving from Lucas to Hogg, then, in some ways
means treading the same ground but on a
different level or in a different register.
-
In providing the above narrative of this
course in Romantic-era fiction, the particular
discussion points I raised are intended to be
descriptive rather than prescriptive. Students
certainly will find their own particular
connections or ideas, and these are welcomed. I
do believe, however, that a focus on a
particular political and/or social issue is a
good way to show the ideological coherence and
contradictions within Romantic-era fiction.
Moreover, though students may not take up
specific questions and/or problems raised by
the course within their research, such a
framework does provide students something firm
to hold onto and even to argue against. Such a
foundation, it seems, is necessary even in an
upper-level course. This is not to say, of
course, that religion is the only focus that
would work. Yet starting with narrower issues
such as religious enthusiasm or toleration can
give students a way to access these novels
while also opening them up to the broader
debates that inform Romantic-era fiction.
-
One area that I addressed specifically above
only a few times but that I try to weave
throughout the course is discussion of formal
issues. A comparison of formal elements of
these novels (such as narrative structure or
even generic choices) allows students to begin
mapping out their definition of the
Romantic-era novel. Indeed, at the end of such
a course, a final-exam essay could lead to that
very question. Given what they have learned
throughout the course, how would they define
Romantic-era fiction? What are its concerns?
What sorts of devices does it use to represent
these concerns? In what ways do formal concerns
mesh with ideological positions? Moreover, it
is useful to combine analysis of formal and
generic devices with political and ideological
analysis to further interrogate how form and
function are related. Also, a thread that runs
through this course is how the novel changes
throughout the Romantic era. I ask students to
look for changes in how particular themes are
represented and how the form of the novel
itself has changed from Lucas to Hogg.
-
Finally, by focusing on this particular
course, I also want to emphasize the need for
more scholarship in Romantic-era fiction. I
believe historical context is important, and I
hope that my suggestions are helpful for
students, but this course might look very
different if there were more secondary
materials on specific novels. Also, I have
pointed toward the necessity of using student
reports or assigning research projects in order
to cover novels that are not widely available.
Though publishers like Broadview and Valancourt
and online resources have greatly altered the
landscape of what is available, this area of
scholarly production appears to me the one that
most affects how Romantic-era fiction is
taught. As teachers, we need to support the
venues that contribute to this field (I choose
Broadview texts whenever possible) and to
consider alternate ways of making this material
available (possibly online). The result can be
an even more vigorous debate about what defines
Romantic-era fiction, and this debate certainly
would help energize teaching of this
subject.
I would like to thank the anonymous readers
for their specific, helpful comments and my
colleague Kathleen Leicht for her valuable
suggestions on improving the critical introduction
assignment.
Works Cited
Balfour, Ian. The Rhetoric of
Romantic Prophecy. Stanford: Stanford UP,
2002.
Canuel, Mark. Religion,
Toleration, and British Writing, 1790-1830.
Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2002.
Colley, Linda. Britons: Forging
the Nation, 1707-1837. New Haven: Yale UP,
1992.
Godwin, William. Mandeville: A
Tale of the Seventeenth Century in England.
London: Longman, 1817.
Goldsmith, Steven. Unbuilding
Jerusalem: Apocalypse and Romantic
Representation. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1993.
Hamilton, Elizabeth. Translations
of the Letters of a Hindoo Rajah. Ed. Pamela
Perkins and Shannon Russell. Peterborough, ON:
Broadview, 1999.
Hogg, James. The Private Memoirs
and Confessions of a Justified Sinner. Ed.
Adrian Hunter. Peterborough, ON: Broadview,
2001.
Hume, David. Essays: Moral,
Political, and Literary. Ed. T.H. Green and
T.H. Grose. Aalen: Scientia Verlag, 1964.
Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1987.
Jager, Colin. The Book of God:
Secularization and Design in the Romantic Era.
Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 2007.
Lucas, Charles. The Infernal
Quixote. Ed. M.O. Grenby. Peterborough, ON:
Broadview, 2004.
Macaulay, Thomas Babington. The
Complete Works of Lord Macaulay. London:
Longmans, 1898.
Mack, Douglas. "'The Rage of
Fanaticism in Former Days': James Hogg's
Confessions of a Justified Sinner and the
Controversy over Old Mortality."
Nineteenth-Century Scottish Fiction. Ed.
Ian Campbell. New York: Barnes & Noble,
1979.
McCalman, Iain. Radical
Underworld: Prophets, Revolutionaries, and
Pornographers in London, 1795-1840. Cambridge:
Cambridge UP, 1988.
Mill, James. The History of
British India. 5th ed. 10 vols. Ed. Horace
Hayman Wilson. London: J. Madden, 1858.
Mee, Jon. Romanticism,
Enthusiasm, and Regulation: Poetics and the
Policing of Culture in the Romantic Period.
Oxford: Oxford UP, 2003.
Mellor, Anne K. Mothers of the
Nation: Women's Political Writing in England,
1780-1830. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2000.
More, Hannah. The Works of Hannah
More. 5 Vols. London: H. Fisher, 1836.
Newman, Gerald. The Rise of
English Nationalism: A Cultural History,
1720-1830. New York: St. Martin 's, 1987.
Owenson, Sydney. The
Missionary. Ed. Julia Wright. Peterborough,
ON: Broadview, 2002.
Porter, Anna Marie. Don
Sebastian; or, the House of Braganza. An Historical
Romance in Four Volumes. London: Longman,
1809.
Priestman, Martin. Romantic
Atheism: Poetry and Freethought, 1780-1830.
Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999.
Roe, Nicholas. Keats and the
Culture of Dissent. Oxford: Clarendon,
1997.
Ryan, Robert M. The Romantic
Reformation: Religious Politics in English
Literature, 1789-1824. Cambridge: Cambridge
UP, 1997.
Scott, Walter. The Tale of Old
Mortality. Ed. Douglas Mack. London: Penguin,
1999.
Shelley, Mary. Valperga. Ed.
Tilottama Rajan. Peterborough, ON: Broadview,
1998.
Ulmer, William A. The Christian
Wordsworth, 1798-1805. Albany: State
University of New York P, 2001.
Vidler, Alec R. The Church in an
Age of Revolution. Rev. ed. London: Penguin,
1974.
West, Jane. The Advantages of
Education. Ed. Gina Luria. 2 vols. New York:
Garland, 1974.
---. The Loyalists: An Historical
Novel. London: Longman, 1812.
---. Tale of the Times. Ed.
Gina Lurie. 3 vols. New York: Garland, 1974.
White, Daniel E. Early
Romanticism and Religious Dissent. Cambridge:
Cambridge UP, 2006.
Wilberforce, William. A Practical
View of the Prevailing Religious System of
Professed Christians, in the Higher and Middle
Classes, Contrasted with Real Christianity.
New York: American Tract Society, 1850.
Wood, Lisa. Modes of Discipline:
Women, Conservatism, and the Novel after the French
Revolution. Lewisburg: Bucknell UP, 2003.
Notes
[1]For example, see Ian Balfour's The
Rhetoric of Romantic Prophecy; Mark Canuel's
Religion, Toleration, and British Writing;
Steven Goldsmith's Unbuilding Jerusalem;
Colin Jager's The Book of God: Secularization
and Design in the Romantic Era; Martin
Priestman's Romantic Atheism; Nicholas
Roe's Keats and the Culture of Dissent;
Robert M. Ryan's The Romantic Reformation;
William A. Ulmer's The Christian Wordsworth,
1798- 1805; and Daniel E. White's Early
Romanticism and Religious Dissent. Though
these texts deal primarily with Romantic-era
poetry, Ryan's book contains a chapter on Mary
Shelley's Frankenstein. Also, Canuel
provides chapters on Radcliffe's Gothic novels and
Edgeworth's national tales that specifically deal
with religious toleration. Though I do not include
the books Canuel discusses in his study in the
course I outline above, these novels would, of
course, work quite well. I find his discussion of
religious toleration especially helpful in framing
a course on the Romantic-era novel and will show
how I integrate his study into my class.
[2]For specific references that might be
useful for instructors in creating such an
introduction to the religious background, please
consult the additional resources section.
[3]For a brief but helpful account of the
movement toward Catholic Emancipation, see Linda
Colley's Britons (324-34).
[4]To reduce the amount of reading from
Mee, it also works to substitute his much shorter
introduction for chapter one. Though certainly less
detailed, Mee's introduction also provides an
overview of the development of the "discourse on
enthusiasm."
[5]I address ways of dealing with the
paucity of modern editions of Romantic-era novels
and provide an example of a research project in my
assignment supplement.
[6]In fact, a good novel for individual
student research that could help supplement this
discussion is West's The Advantages of
Education (1793), which contrasts the
educations of Maria Williams and Charlotte Raby.
West's providential worldview, her emphasis on duty
and virtue, and her anti-romance stance all seem
characteristically conservative, but these issues
actually can reveal points of affinities with
Wollstonecraft's texts on education.
|
|
