Nineteenth-Century Religion and Literature: An Introduction by Mark Knight, Emma Mason

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MLR,103.2, zoo8 5I7 Chippendale, Josiah Wedgwood [.. .] which outlined indetail the fineartofcombining furniture, textiles,and ornaments to create an individualized [. . ] interior' (p. I77). The book is rounded off with an 'Afterword'on Humphry Repton. It also offers a very extensive and accurate bibliography, of both primary and secondary sources. UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI MILANO MARIALUISA BIGNAMI Nineteenth-Century Religion and Literature: An Introduction. Ed. byMARK KNIGHT and EMMAMASON. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2006. Viii+ 245 pp. IJ5?. ISBN 978-0-I9-9277I0-0. Mark Knight and Emma Mason have produced an ambitious book. Focusing upon English Christianity as distinct fromBritish Christianity, theyargue thatnineteenth century 'Britain was predominantly a Christian culture' (p. 3). This is very ques tionable. There were distinct regional and national differences.Church attendance in factdecreased rather than increased as the century progressed, especially among the rapidly expanding urban population. In their introduction both admit thatChristian ity was fluid, indeed protean, but theydo not sufficientlyexpand upon this.The first chapter focuses upon 'the influence of eighteenth century dissenting culture' (p. 3) with, somewhat curiously, one peripheral reference toDonald Davie's work, although another important scholar, J. R. Watson, fares slightly better.The second chapter fo cuses on Unitarianism, which 'denied thedivinity ofChrist' (p. i i). This chapter is too dependent on thewritings and lettersofElizabeth Gaskell, who 'received aUni tarian education inwhich she studied theBible, classics, and several languages from an early age' (p. 77). Fortunately, in thisbook Knight andMason cannot be accused of confining their references tomaterials published in the lastdecade or so.However, theomission of thename ofBasil Willey and hisMore Nineteenth Century Studies: A Group ofHonest Doubters (London: Chatto & Windus, 1956) is somewhat curious. The thirdchapter, 'The Oxford Movement: Wordsworth toHopkins', does itsbest to explicate a complex and influential set of ideology. The chapter closes with an interesting short account of 'the aesthetic impact ofTractarianism on secular writers like Walter Pater' (p. 12). The following chapter attempts, I think fairlysuccessfully, 'to appreciate the complexity of Evangelicism', drawing upon such mid-nineteenth century fictional texts as Jane Eyre, David Copperfield, The Moonstone, and Bleak House. It also uses 'the treatmentof temptation and the trope of the fallenwoman in Middlemarch and Tess of the D'Urbervilles' (p. 13). An omission is Wilkie Collins's first published book,Memoirs of the Life of William Collins, Esq. RA (i 848), inwhich he describes a father increasingly obsessed with Evangelism, personally bordering on insanity andmystical trances. 'Secularization: Dickens toHardy', the fifth chapter, startswith a detailed reading ofCharles Dickens's A Christmas Carol (I843) and concludes with Jude theObscure (I 895), which Knight andMason perceptively observe 'reminds [them] of the rewrit ing that is intrinsic to theChristian tradition' (p. I4). Indeed, theirconcluding chapter 'Catholicism andMysticism: Huysmans toChesterton', inaddition to encompassing a lengthy 'tradition of British anti-Catholicism' (another curious omission here is Wilkie Collins, The Black Robe (i88o-8i)), attempts to explore 'the extent towhich the religiousmap ofBritain was redrawn at the end of thecentury' (p. I4). Of course, thereare always exceptions: mystical learning occurred before Blake and findtheir way intodiverse nineteenth-century works: the all toobrief discussion ofDaniel Deronda, for instance (pp. i6o-6i), fails to grasp that Mordecai's utterances are in a long line ofmystical tradition, indeed at times paraphrasing inEnglish thewords of the great eleventh-/twelfth-century Jewish visionary Yehuda Halevi and his Kusari (c. I I30 40). Another omission isRobert Browning, where discussion is limited to 'Mr. Sludge 5 I8 Reviews the Median'. Browning's poems often debate issues of religion and belief. It isgood to see, however, some recognition of the importance and impact ofCardinal Newman. D. H. Lawrence (I885-1930) spent the firstfifteenyears of his life innineteenth century eastMidlands. Looking back on the 'ratherbanal Nonconformist hymns that penetrated through and through [my] childhood' in 'Hymns in aMan's Life' (I928), he recalls the tremendous impact theword Galilee had upon him: it was 'Where Jesus loved somuch to be'; Lawrence 'neverwanted to go toPalestine' (D. H. Lawrence, Late Essays and Articles, ed. by James T. Boulton (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer sityPress, 2004), p. 130). Lawrence's mefmories, however, illustratejust how complex and interwoven are the interrelationships between theChristian traditions and their source, theOld Testament. Knight andMason's...