Christian weapons at the forge of romance: a study of some aspects of the expression of religious experience in selected works of George MacDonald, Charles Kingsley, Charles Dickens and George Eliot with special reference to early nineteenth century evangelical tracts

Abstract

This thesis looks at some ways of describing religious experience in the works of selected Victorian novelists and in early nineteenth century evangelical tracts. I show that the novelists used formulae in their descriptions similar to those used didactically in the tracts to convey specific points of Christian doctrine. I argue that these formulae, used in the different context of the novels, with a different purpose and emphasis, hampered the development of an analysis of religious experience more appropriate to the novels' freer context. I have accordingly selected novelists whose work reflects a spectrum of attitudes towards orthodox Christianity, but maintains an interest in it - novelists who might be expected to want to analyse religious experience freshly. The comparison between tracts and novels is made via the formulae. I have also suggested a comparison based on method - the tracts describe religious experience in terms of universally applicable doctrine, a method I have called tract, while the novelists move towards a fantasy mode in which the individual's inner experience of God can be accommodated. The distinction between the methods is explored and developed throughout the thesis and is an essential methodological tool. The thesis is arranged in six chapters with a general introduction and a conclusion. The first five chapters explore formulae common to tracts and novels: the influence of The Pilgrim's Progress, conversions, deathbeds, the significance attached to children and to poverty. The sixth chapter examines ways in which an idea of God may be developed in the tract and the fantasy modes. In each chapter I examine a number of tracts and two or three selected novels. Through the thesis I demonstrate that the reliance on inappropriate formulae often accounts for major flaws in the novels I examine and that the distinction between tract and fantasy can open the way for a more complex engagement with the religious content of the novels.