Reforming the Religious Sonnet: Poetry, Doubt and the Church in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

2016 ◽  
Vol 52 ◽  
pp. 413-436
Author(s):  
Kirstie Blair
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Victorian Literature ◽  
Carol Ann Duffy ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries ◽  
Geoffrey Hill ◽  
Victorian Literature And Culture ◽  
The Church

This essay examines the tradition of ‘doubting’ poetics through an assessment of selected nineteenth- and twentieth-century sonnets. Through considering recent work on Victorian literature and culture, it argues for the importance of the poetics of faith in this period, and assesses the presence of nineteenth-century Christian, and particularly Anglican, forms and concepts in the genre of the sonnet. Analysing later twentieth-century sonnets by Geoffrey Hill and Carol Ann Duffy, it suggests that the sonnet remains vitally linked to the literature of faith and that these sonnets have vital links to their Victorian predecessors.

Scottish Missionaries, ‘Protestant Hinduism’ and the Scottish Sense of Empire in Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-century India

2007 ◽  
Vol 86 (2) ◽  
pp. 278-313 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Constable
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Western India ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Church Of Scotland ◽  
Free Church ◽  
Intellectual Engagement ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
The Church

This article examines the Scottish missionary contribution to a Scottish sense of empire in India in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Initially, the article reviews general historiographical interpretations which have in recent years been developed to explain the Scottish relationship with British imperial development in India. Subsequently the article analyses in detail the religious contributions of Scottish Presbyterian missionaries of the Church of Scotland and the Free Church Missions to a Scottish sense of empire with a focus on their interaction with Hindu socioreligious thought in nineteenth-century western India. Previous missionary historiography has tended to focus substantially on the emergence of Scottish evangelical missionary activity in India in the early nineteenth century and most notably on Alexander Duff (1806–78). Relatively little has been written on Scottish Presbyterian missions in India in the later nineteenth century, and even less on the significance of their missionary thought to a Scottish sense of Indian empire. Through an analysis of Scottish Presbyterian missionary critiques in both vernacular Marathi and English, this article outlines the orientalist engagement of Scottish Presbyterian missionary thought with late nineteenth-century popular Hinduism. In conclusion this article demonstrates how this intellectual engagement contributed to and helped define a Scottish missionary sense of empire in India.

Making a Space for Antisemitism: The Catholic Hierarchy and the Jews in the Early Twentieth Century

2003 ◽  
pp. 415-430
Author(s):  
Brian Porter
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
The Common ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
The Church

This chapter argues that as recently as the 1880s, Catholicism, as it existed in Poland at the time, was still somewhat resistant to expressions of antisemitism. Catholicism, in other words, was configured in such a way in the late nineteenth century as to make it hard for antisemites to express their views without moving to the very edges of the Catholic framework. Catholicism and antisemitism did overlap at the time, but the common ground was much more confined than it would later become. If one moves forward fifty years, to the 1930s, one sees a different picture: the discursive boundaries of Catholicism in Poland had shifted to such a degree that antisemitism became not only possible, but also difficult to avoid. The upshot of this argument is that Catholicism in Poland is not antisemitic in any sort of essential way, and that religion did not directly generate the forms of hatred that would become so deadly and virulent in the early twentieth century. None the less, Catholicism did become amenable to antisemitism in Poland, so much so that the Church in Poland between the wars was one of the country's leading sources of prejudice and animosity.

Deification in the Long Nineteenth Century

2019 ◽  
pp. 55-81
Author(s):  
Ruth Coates
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Institutions Of Higher Education ◽  
Religious Thought ◽  
History Of ◽  
Cultural Expressions ◽  
Russian Religious Thought ◽  
The Church

Chapter 2 sets out the history of the reception of deification in Russia in the long nineteenth century, drawing attention to the breadth and diversity of the theme’s manifestation, and pointing to the connections with inter-revolutionary religious thought. It examines how deification is understood variously in the spheres of monasticism, Orthodox institutions of higher education, and political culture. It identifies the novelist Fedor Dostoevsky and the philosopher Vladimir Soloviev as the most influential elite cultural expressions of the idea of deification, and the primary conduits through which Western European philosophical expressions of deification reach early twentieth-century Russian religious thought. Inspired by the anthropotheism of Feuerbach, and Stirner’s response to this, Dostoevsky brings to the fore the problem of illegitimate self-apotheosis, whilst Soloviev, in his philosophy of divine humanity, bequeaths deification to his successors both as this is understood by the church and in its iteration in German metaphysical idealism.

A Homosocial Priesthood of All Believers: Laity and Gender in Interwar Sweden

2019 ◽  
Vol 88 (2) ◽  
pp. 440-464
Author(s):  
Martin Nykvist
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Church Of Sweden ◽  
Priesthood Of All Believers ◽  
Gender Differentiation ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Church Life ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Church

Around the turn of the twentieth century, there was a growing concern within the Church of Sweden that the church was, to a too large extent, managed by the clergy alone. In an attempt to give the laity a more active and influential role in the Church of Sweden, the Brethren of the Church was established in 1918. Since it was only possible for men to become members, the organization simultaneously addressed a different issue: the view that women had become a much too salient group in church life. This process was described by the Brethren and similar groups as a “feminization” of the church, a phrasing which later came to be used by historians and theologians to explain changes in Western Christianity in the nineteenth century. In other words, the Brethren considered questions of gender vital to their endeavor to create a church in which the laity held a more prominent position. This article analyzes how the perceived feminization and its assumed connection to secularization caused enhanced attempts to uphold and strengthen gender differentiation in the Church of Sweden in the early twentieth century. By analyzing an all-male lay organization, the importance of homosociality in the construction of Christian masculinities will also be discussed.

scholarly journals Dialogical elements in Harris, Dewey, Cutter, Otlet, Kaiser, and Ranganathan: Theoretical convergences in the history of Knowledge Organization

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 348-362
Author(s):  
Rodrigo de SALES ◽  
Daniel MARTÍNEZ-ÁVILA ◽  
José Augusto GUIMARÃES
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
Knowledge Organization ◽  
Methodological Development ◽  
History Of Knowledge ◽  
History Of ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries ◽  
Descriptive Approach

Abstract In this paper, we study the theoretical intersections and dialogues between some foundational authors on classification and indexing of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that helped developing the theoretical-methodological framework of knowledge organization. More specifically, we highlight and analyze the theoretical convergences of Harris, Dewey, Cutter, Otlet, Kaiser, and Ranganathan as they can provide a clearer picture of the historical and theoretical contributions to the epistemological foundations of knowledge organization. Our methodology follows a critical-descriptive approach to the analysis of the main contributions of the authors and the critical reflections of some specialists and biographers. We continue with a discussion of the links between bibliographic classifications and knowledge organization drawing on the ideas of Bliss; then, we divide our historical narrative between the theoretical contributions during the nineteenth-century (Harris, Dewey, and Cutter) and the twentieth century (Otlet, Kaiser, and Ranganathan); and finally, we present a discussion of the history of knowledge organization from the point of view of the theoretical and methodological development of classification and indexing at the turn of the nineteenth century to the twentieth century. We conclude with some remarks on their main contributions to the development of the knowledge organization field.

Two Autobiographical Narratives of Conversion: Robert Hugh Benson and Ronald Knox

1998 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-253
Author(s):  
George Marshall
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
Autobiographical Narratives ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Church

Ever since the Reformation, and increasingly since the example set by Newman, the Church of England has had to contend with the lure of Rome; in every generation there have been clergymen who converted to the Roman Catholic Church, a group either statistically insignificant or a momentous sign of the future, depending on one’s viewpoint. From the nineteenth century Newman and Manning stand out. From the first two decades of the twentieth century among the figures best remembered are Robert Hugh Benson (1871–1914) and Ronald Arbuthnot Knox (1888–1957). They are remembered, not because they were more saintly or more scholarly than others, but because they were both writers and therefore are responsible for their own memorials. What is more, they both followed Newman in publishing an account of the circumstances of their conversion. This is a genre which continues to hold interest. The two works demonstrate, among other things, the continuing influence of Newman’s writings about the identity of the Church.

Other-Worldly and This-Worldly Islam and the Islamic Revival

2004 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Important Change ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Islamic Revival ◽  
The Past ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries ◽  
Islamic Society

In his Islam in Modern History, published in 1957, yet still a work remarkable for its insights, Wilfred Cantwell Smith refers to the extraordinary energy which had surged through the Muslim world with increasing force in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He talks of:dynamism, the appreciation of activity for its own sake, and at the level of feeling a stirring of intense, even violent, emotionalism…The transmutation of Muslim society from its early nineteenth-century stolidity to its twentieth-century ebullience is no mean achievement. The change has been everywhere in evidence.This surge of energy is closely associated with a shift in the balance of Muslim piety from an other-worldly towards a this-worldly focus. By this I mean a devaluing of a faith of contemplation of God's mysteries and of belief in His will to shape human life, and a valuing instead of a faith in which Muslims were increasingly aware that it was they, and only they, who could act to fashion an Islamic society on earth. This shift of emphasis has been closely associated with a new idea of great power, the caliphate of man. In the absence of Muslim power, in the absence, for the Sunnis at least, of a caliph, however symbolic, to guide, shape and protect the community, this awesome task now fell to each individual Muslim. I hazard to suggest that this shift towards a this-worldly piety, and the new responsibilities for Muslims that came with it, is the most important change that Muslims have wrought in the practice of their faith over the past one thousand years. It is a change full of possibilities for the future.

Predestination and Election

2019 ◽  
pp. 396-412
Author(s):  
W. Andrew Hoffecker
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
New Testament ◽  
Paradigm Shift ◽  
Original Sin ◽  
John Calvin ◽  
Friedrich Schleiermacher ◽  
Human Responsibility ◽  
The Church

Presbyterians have historically advocated predestination and election as intimately related to the doctrines of God as sovereign Creator, providential ruler, and savior of his chosen people. Using Augustine’s interpretation of major Old and New Testament passages as a foundation, Presbyterians have generally understood election to be unconditional and to rest on God’s mercy necessitated by humankind’s original sin. John Calvin answered objections to the doctrines, emphasized predestination as a pastoral comfort to believers, and affirmed human responsibility. Calvin’s successors debated the order of God’s decrees and Jacob Arminius’s attack on Calvinism, which denied double predestination, interpreted predestination as conditional, and proposed prevenient grace as enabling all people to choose to be saved. Calvin’s views were reaffirmed by the Council of Dort’s five points in 1619 and upheld by Presbyterians in the Westminster Confession of Faith, adopted in 1646. In the nineteenth century, Friedrich Schleiermacher proposed a paradigm shift by rejecting original sin and arguing that God’s decree was based on his foreseeing faith in the elect. Presbyterians also debated whether Calvinism should be altered to conform to revivalist practices and whether the Westminster Confession should be revised in light of new theological trends. In the twentieth century, conservative Presbyterians continued to affirm traditional Calvinist theology, while most mainline Presbyterians either rejected or ignored it and focused on the work of the church.

Ordinary Masochisms

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Mitchell
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
Victorian Literature ◽  
Charlotte Bronte ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
Theoretical Examination ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries ◽  
Late Nineteenth

Ordinary Masochisms argues for literary alternatives to pervasive dictatorial norms about masochism that first surface in Victorian literature, reach their pioneering pinnacle in the modernist moment, and are expressly mourned in post-modern texts. In particular, the literary works discussed all challenge the more popular term “sadomasochism” as a conglomerate form of perversion that was named and studied in the late nineteenth century. Underscoring close textual analyses with modern theories of masochism as empowering, this book argues that Charlotte Brontë Villette (1853), George Moore’s A Drama in Muslin (1886), D.H. Lawrence’s The Rainbow (1915), and Jean Rhys’s Quartet (1928) all experiment with masochistic relationships that extend far beyond reductive early readings of inherently feminine or sexually aberrant masochism. Ordinary Masochisms begins with a historical and theoretical examination of masochism’s treatment during the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries before moving to an examination of the Biblical tale of Samson and Delilah in conjunction with Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s Venus in Furs (1870), from which masochism garners its name. An intermediary chapter treats Octave Mirbeau’s The Torture Garden (1903) as a case study transitioning between sexological and psychoanalytical discourses of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, while the conclusion about Ian McEwan’s The Comfort of Strangers (1981) addresses masochism’s seeming inability to recuperate itself from categories of deviance, despite the success of contemporary popular culture representations. The book closes with a brief consideration of masochistic reading, a subtle undercurrent of the project as a whole.

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