Class, imperialism and literary criticism: William Ngidi, John Colenso and Matthew Arnold

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship which developed between Natal's first Anglican bishop, John William Colenso, and William Ngidi, his assistant in translation and the study of the Zulu language in the 1850s and early 1860s. It shows how both men gained greater insight into the nature of religious belief through this experience, and how it led Colenso to enter the current debates on belief by means of a radical critique on the shallowness of the contemporary attitudes and teaching of his church. Amongst Colenso's most effective critics was Matthew Arnold whose scathing attack on Colenso's work did much to ruin the bishop's reputation as a serious thinker on religious matters. But these attacks also reveal in Arnold a profound fear of the consequences of the democratization of knowledge which is significant given his formative role in the development of English literary studies. The historical processes which link William Ngidi's questioning of Colenso with the latter's interventions in the debates on religious belief, and their impact on the development of Arnold's writing on literary criticism, all suggest how important it is to include the imperial context in any study of cultural developments at the metropole.