Robert Pollok's The Course of Time and Literary Theodicy in the Romantic Age

The Rise and Fall of a Christian Epic
1. Auflage 2023
ISBN: 978-1-032-52310-1
Verlag: Routledge

Buch, Englisch, 272 Seiten, Format (B × H): 157 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 552 g

Reihe: Routledge Studies in Romanticism

This book explores the contexts and reception history of Robert Pollok’s religious epic The Course of Time (1827), one of the best- selling long poems of the nineteenth century, which has been almost entirely forgotten today. Widely read in the United States and across the British Empire, the poem’s combination of evangelical Calvinism, High Romanticism, and native Scottishness proved irresistible to many readers. This monograph traces the poem’s origins as a defense of Biblical authority, divine providence, and religious orthodoxy (against figures like Byron and Joseph Priestley) and explores the reasons for The Course of Time’s enormous, decades- long popularity and later precipitous decline. A close reading of the poem and an examination of its reception history offers readers important insights into the dynamic relationship between religion and wider culture in the nineteenth century, the uses of literature as a vehicle for theological argument and theodicy, and the important but often overlooked role that religion played in literary— and, particularly, Scottish— Romanticism. This work will appeal to scholars of religious history, literary history, Evangelicalism, Romanticism, Scottish literature, and nineteenth- century culture.

Zielgruppe

Postgraduate

Autoren/Hrsg.

Davis, Deryl

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtswissenschaft Allgemein
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturwissenschaft: Lyrik und Dichter
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Klassische Literaturwissenschaft
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Englische Literatur
• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Bibelwissenschaften Neues Testament: Exegese, Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literarische Stoffe, Motive und Themen
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Europäische Literatur
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Kinder- und Jugendliteratur, Märchen, Mythen, Sagen
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturwissenschaft: Prosa, Erzählung, Roman, Prosaautoren

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface

 

Acknowledgements

 

Introduction: Robert Pollok and the Contexts of The Course of Time

 

Summary of The Course of Time

 

Note on Language

 

Chapter 1: Miltonic Theodicy in the Romantic Age

 

Chapter 2: Epic Correspondences: How Pollok Used Milton

 

Chapter 3: Sources of Inspiration:  Byron, John Dick, Edward Irving and old Mortality

 

Chapter 4: The Poem a Sermon: Religion and Moral Portraiture in The Course of Time

 

Chapter 5: Sharpening Weapons at the Forge of Byron: Romanticism and Apocalypticism in The Course of Time

 

Chapter 6: The Rise and Fall of a Christian Epic

 

Conclusion

 

Bibliography

 

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Deryl Davis is Adjunct Professor of Theology and the Arts at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C., and a producer with Journey Films, a documentary film company making films on religion and spirituality for public television. He received his Ph.D. in Literature, Theology, and the Arts from the University of Glasgow, Scotland.