Disraeli’s Novels: Religion and Identity

Abstract

“Dizzy’s attachment to moderate Oxfordism is something like Bonaparte’s to moderate Mahomedanism’, observed George Smythe in 1842. ‘Could I only satisfy myself, wrote his fellow Young Englander, Lord John Manners, a year later, ‘that d’Israeli believed all that he said, I should be more happy: his historical views are quite mine, but does he believe them?’ As a politician, Disraeli was and remains a man of mystery, an identity which he took some care to cultivate. His protean career in public life found a counterpart in his literary works, in which likewise over the years he appeared to assume a range of different positions. His religious allegiance is similarly elusive. He had attended a Unitarian school, and his theological position, with little sense of the divinity of Jesus, reflected that branch of Christianity most akin to Judaism. On the other hand, he was fascinated by the rituals of Roman Catholicism and the cult of the Virgin Mary, and it was perhaps natural that he should find his spiritual home in the Church of England, that house of many mansions which to his mind reflected the rich diversity of national life. How far there was an underlying principle in Disraeli’s life and art is a question that has intrigued numerous historians, and it will be the chief concern also of this essay in respect of two key issues: religion and national identity.