Musical Oratory? A Prolegomenon to Newman and Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius

Query from 'the dream of Gerontius'

Query from 'The Dream of Gerontius'

Journal Article "Dream of Gerontius" Get access E. Walford, M.A. E. Walford, M.A. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Notes and Queries, Volume s7-XI, Issue 271, 7 March 1891, Page 194, https://doi.org/10.1093/nq/s7-XI.271.194e Published: 07 March 1891

John Henry Newman once remarked to a friend that his Dream of Gerontius. “was written by accident — and it was published by accident”, yet his personal history proves otherwise; it was the fruit of many years of agonizing study and prayer leading him to the Roman Catholic Church. It is rightly considered a major contribution to Roman Catholic spirituality and doctrine which continues to inspire theology and piety.The Dream of Gerontius expresses in poetical form many truths of Catholic dogma concerning creation, redemption and eschatology. This, Newman’s longest poem, composed in 1865, almost twenty years after his entrance into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church, underscores his Catholic beliefs in the mysterious complementarity between God’s justice and mercy whereby at the particular judgment, some souls require a final preparation for heaven. In his Plain and Parochial Sermons Newman had rebutted the 19th century denial of possible eternal damnation. In the Dream of Gerontius, he emphasized God’s merciful dispensation. Eschatology is intertwined with Christology and Christian anthropology. Furthermore, the seeds of an ecclesiology of communion are present as a dominant theme.

An Excerpt from "The Dream of Gerontius"

"The Dream of Gerontius" at Westminster Cathedral

New BlackfriarsVolume 32, Issue 373 p. 156-160 ELGAR'S ‘DREAM OF GERONTIUS’Aet.50 Eric Taylor, Eric TaylorSearch for more papers by this author Eric Taylor, Eric TaylorSearch for more papers by this author First published: April 1951 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-2005.1951.tb06637.xAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume32, Issue373April 1951Pages 156-160 RelatedInformation

Neither Anglicans nor Catholics ever seemed to grasp how inseparable literature and theology were for Newman. His prose fiction, like his poetry, involved complex images and symbols in a network of interconnected references, some obtrusive, some slight and allusive. Though declaring the Catholic Church essentially ‘poetic’ inverted his earlier idealized vision of Anglicanism, this remained a Catholicism with a peculiarly Anglican aesthetic. But if, for those whose interest in Newman is primarily theological, the idea of him as an essentially literary figure seems strange, for those whose knowledge of him is through choral concert performances of ‘The Dream of Gerontius’, the reality is equally strange. Writers are by nature solitary, but Newman was peculiarly solitary. Though he constantly sought community—in Oxford, and later among his fellow Catholics—whether in poetry or prose, his themes concern loneliness.

Jeffrey Richards, Imperialism and Music: Britain, 1876–1953. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2001, 544 pp., £49.99, ISBN 0 7190 4506 1 hard covers, £17.99, ISBN 0 7109 6143 1 paperback. - Volume 73 Issue 1

Mr. Elgar's Setting of 'The Dream of Gerontius.' To Be Produced at the Birmingham Musical Festival on October 3

This chapter examines the war poetry of the English poet Charles Sorley (1895–1915), from the perspective of classical reception. It shows that his 1915 poem ‘I have not brought my Odyssey’ draws on the literary framework of Horace’s poetic letters to friends in his Epistles, as well as the Odyssey of Homer advertised in its title, both texts he would have encountered in his elite classical education at Marlborough College. It also analyses Sorley’s most famous poem, the 1915 sonnet, ‘When you see millions of the mouthless dead’. Here it shows that the poem combines elements from Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey in resignation about death and an imagining of the Underworld. It further suggests that this last element is partly seen through the Christian perspective of John Henry Newman’s ‘Dream of Gerontius’, one of the most famous Victorian poems about the afterlife.

By reason of Newman's text and the religious antecendents of the composer, Elgar, Dream of Gerontius has assumed a unique place in English music. This book examines its relationship to the English Catholic tradition. The significance of music within the centuries of struggle towards emancipation and the importance of music and musicians attached to the Catholic Embassy chapels in London during the 18th and 19th centuries are considered in relation to the creative careers both of Newman and Elgar.

'The Dream of Gerontius' in Vancouver

Previous articleNext article No AccessA Suggested Background for Newman's "Dream of Gerontius"Esther R. B. PeseEsther R. B. Pese Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Modern Philology Volume 47, Number 2Nov., 1949 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/388830 Views: 1Total views on this site PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Why was John Henry Newman's The Dream of Gerontius so popular with Victorian readers? Our ingrained historicist instincts tell us that this should not necessarily have been case. After all, The Dream is a poetic vision of purgatory, one of most Catholic of subjects, and it was published in 1865, little more than twenty years after Newman caused tremendous upset by proposing possibility of an Anglican purgatory in Tract 90 (1841), most inflammatory document of Oxford Movement. Given outrage that followed, it seemed impossible that a few years later his devotional poem on subject would be warmly embraced rather than hotly disputed. And yet, embraced it was. The Dream of Gerontius, Newman's poem about an old man's journey to afterlife, became one of best-known and, moreover, best-loved Victorian consolation poems about death. Some scholars place it second to Tennyson's In Memoriam. (1) By 1888, indeed, poem's twenty-four published editions had made their way into numerous Victorian households. General Gordon carried it with him on his campaign in Egypt prior to his death in Khartoum and Edward Elgar turned it into a successful choral opera. Poets and professors alike bestowed their stamp of approval. Algernon Charles Swinburne praised its genuine lyric note (2) and Francis Hastings Doyle, Oxford Professor of Poetry, devoted a lecture to poem in which he said it deserved high commendation. (3) Taking his commendation a step further, he urged Oxford community to stop being envenomed by the spirit of these religious differences (p. 123). The piece de resistance is that no one better gratified Doyle's wish than Newman's nemesis, Charles Kingsley, who wrote in a private letter that he read Dream with awe and admiration. However utterly I may differ from entourage in which Dr. Newman's present creed surrounds central idea, I must feel that that central idea is as true as it is noble. (4) These statements, oddly enough, came from same man who had proclaimed Newman worse than dead to Englishmen in Fraser's Magazine a few years earlier. (5) Although Kingsley later tempered his praise with poison in a public review of poem, he still backhandedly admired the wonderful beauty of its poetry, thereby initiating a reviewer tradition of separating poem's from its overt Catholic theology. (6) Although no longer critical favorite that it was in late nineteenth century, The Dream of Gerontius remains of vital relevance in illuminating role devotional poetry played in conflict resolution after Oxford Movement. (7) As poem in recent times is rarely considered outside of its theological and religious-historical interest, it has been bypassed by a contemporary tradition of literary scholarship focusing on political work of Victorian poetry. Newman's prose is often included in considerations of relation between poetry and politics, such as Isobel Armstrong's seminal Victorian Poetry: Poetry, Poetics and Politics, which discusses how Newman's sermons and tracts illuminate political concerns of poets like Arthur Hugh Clough and Matthew Arnold, but his poetry is itself overlooked in such studies, (8) Despite The Dream's many potential critical points of interest--including lingering mystery of its success, its controversial content, and political turnaround it helped achieve--Newman's most popular poem has received little literary critical attention in our time. As a result, its popularity has yet to be addressed as a phenomenon firmly enmeshed in Newman's poetics. This essay shows how Newman's devotional poetry shaped public perception of Tractarian Movement, and in particular Tract 90, a generation later. Situating The Dream within context of Victorian theological disputes, it explores often underestimated political potential of devotional poetry and death consolation literature in years following Oxford Movement. …