Church Architecture, Tractarian Poetry and the Forms of Faith Kirstie Blair

Abstract

This chapter examines the formative relation between church architecture and religious poetry, particularly Tractarian poetry, in the 1830s and 1840s. It considers works from very different theological perspectives, including Isaac Williams' ‘The Cathedral’ and John Ruskin's Seven Lamps of Architecture, and argues that the ‘central space’ for religious feeling represented by church architecture and poetry played a major role in the shaping of belief. The chapter also looks at Coventry Patmore's writings which address the question of ‘the reconciliation of life and law’ in gothic.