‘Mysterious Sanctity’: Sectarianism and Syncretism from Volney to Hemans

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes As rational Dissent gave way to evangelicalism and the missionary movement, and as the progress of the French Revolution and the Revolutionary War drove England into a period of political and religious retrenchment, the public viability of sectarian or denominational identities dwindled in the minds of many nonconformist writers, and so did the possibilities of literary affiliations explicitly rooted in the values and interests of these clearly defined religious organizations. Although orthodox Dissent was experiencing the remarkable revival that would make nonconformity such a powerful political force, in the early nineteenth century the literary culture of heterodox Dissent was widely perceived to be losing its focused and coherent identity. See Watts 1.464–490, 2.347–357. Brumoy’s Le Théâtre des Grecs (1730) was translated by Charlotte Lennox as The Greek Theatre of Father Brumoy, 3 vols. (London, 1759); the ‘Discourse on Greek Comedy’ and the general conclusion were translated by Samuel Johnson. Other prominent syncretic works of the late eighteenth century include Richard Payne Knight’s An Account of the Remains of the Worship of Priapus (London, 1786), John Lemprière’s Bibliotheca Classica; or, a Classical Dictionary (Reading, 1788), John Bell’s New Pantheon; or, Historical Dictionary of the Gods, Demi-Gods, Heroes, and Fabulous Personages of Antiquity (London, 1790), and Thomas Taylor’s translation of Pausanias, The Description of Greece … in which Much of the Mythology of the Greeks is Unfolded from a Theory which has been for Many Ages Unknown (London, 1794). See Webb, ‘Romantic Hellenism’ 165–66; and Butler, Romantics, Rebels and Reactionaries 129–137. See Wilson 23; Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization 156–157, and The Sociology of Religion 100; Niebuhr 19; and Berger 467–485. See Priestman 24–26. Before the Letters, Priestley had responded at length to Volney’s The Ruins in ‘Animadversions on the Writings of Several Modern Unbelievers, and especially The Ruins of M. Volney,’ included in Observations on the Increase of Infidelity, 3rd edn. (London, 1797). On Shelleyan syncretism, see especially Curran, Shelley’s Annus Mirabilis; also Wasserman 271, and Hogle 168. In ‘Romantic Passions,’ Sweet reads Superstition and Revelation in the context of Hemans’ correspondence with the Anglican writer, priest, and (after 1823) Bishop of Calcutta, Reginald Heber, persuasively proposing that the poem is ‘an equivocal text’ (para. 16) which attempts ‘a harmonizing of Shelleyan syncretism with established religion’ (para. 14). Additional informationNotes on contributorsDaniel E. White Daniel E. White is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Toronto. Correspondence to: Daniel E. White, 116–365 Dundas St. East, Toronto, ON M5A 4R9, Canada; e-mail: dwhite@utm.utoronto.ca Daniel E. White is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Toronto. Correspondence to: Daniel E. White, 116–365 Dundas St. East, Toronto, ON M5A 4R9, Canada; e-mail: dwhite@utm.utoronto.ca