2014 5englishminormodule Four Creedsone

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MODULE FOUR: Victorian Age Positive and Oppositive CreedsRevivals and Contestations of Traditional Faith: The Oford Move!ent and "ohn #enr$%e&!an' (erard Manle$ #op)ins *The +indhover,- *%o +orst- There .s %one, vers/sthe dis!issal of Christianit$ in Algernon Charles 0&in1/rne2s pessi!istic aestheticis! in*#$!n to Prosepine, 3Contri1/tions ..- 456478and Tho!as #enr$ #/le$2s Agnosticis!

The nineteenth century difers rom the twentieth as a whole in that it still handled

creeds rather than simply (intellectual) trends and methods. The nineteenth century

still debated the issues o (Christian) aith, rather than witnessing the shit in

paradigms which replaced each other. This was so because the nineteenth century

remembered the old connection between liberal learning and theology, and

the subordination of human arts and sciences to theology in the rst

universities of the Middle Ages. This caused learning to be regarded as a path

towards mans perection, this being the destiny o the world, to advance towardsthe divine source o all perections.

n its !rst part, the lecture will present the last ardent survivals of the old

creed in an early and mid"#ictorian movement (a religious revival) at $%ord (The

$%ord &ovement) and in a poets words ('erard &anley opins).

n the second part, the lecture will introduce a poetic contestation of

Christianity(rom a neo"pagan point o view, the neo"edonistic or Cyrenaic

dramatic monologue *ymn to +roserpine, written in 1- by /lgernon Charles

0winburne, who was considered the most musical o poets in the nglish language)1

and a contestation of the statements of faith from the point of view of ascientist(in Thomas enry u%leys coinage o the term agnosticism)

.

The Oxford Movement, also called the Tractarian &ovement, circulated tracts(pamphlets) within the 2niversity o $%ord, among the dons (doctors o divinity) tosupport the idea that the /nglicanChurch was Catholic rather than +rotestant. Tract 34, was drawn up and circulatedin 1-51 by 6ohn enry 7ewman, who is still amous today, having been beati!ed by

1The 8iipedia entry about the originalCyrenaicsultra"hedonist'ree school o

philosophy ounded in the 5th century 9C, supposedly by /ristippus o Cyrene e%plains boththe connection between the late (and anti":) #ictorian doctrine o the modern Cyrenaics

(presented in !ctional orm in the romance essay by 8alter +ater Marius the Epicurean

(1--;) and the connection between post"romanticism and romanticism. *The Cyrenaics

taught that the only intrinsic good is pleasure, which meant not


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+ope 9enedict # in >414. is conversion to Catholicism gave rise to the /nglo"Catholic Church in the second part o the nineteenth century (ater 1-5;). tadvocated the need to return to *the principle o dogma, to avisible Church with sacramentsand rites as the channels o invisible grace ? thiswas a novelty or the tepid aith o the political /nglican Church, which had beenplaced under the


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vorte%) dynamismB >the intensity o the revelation and pathos causes the nglishlanguage to become unhinged and the words to accompany the cosmogonicthought gushing orth in wonder.httpDDwww.poetryoundation.orgDpoemD1E@5

Pied Beauty9 (ERARD MA%LE #OP;.%0

Glory be to God for dappled things

For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches wings;

Landscape plotted and pieced fold fallow and plough;

!nd "ll tr"des their gear and tackle and trim#

!ll things counter original spare strange;

$hate%er is fickle freckled &who knows how'(

$ith swift slow; sweet sour; ada))le dim;*e fathers-forth whose beauty is past change+

Praise him#

Compare with &atthew /rnolds *The sea o Aaith was once, too, at the ull andround earths shore the ervour o this ode which allows man to see all thingstogether (landscapes, creatures, mans occupations ? in the !rst part o the poem ?and the abstract principles o diversity which inorm *all things counter, whateverisoriginal, spare strangeB !cle, recled ? in the second part o the poem andcreate the rhythms and accidents o nature *with swit, slowB *sweet, sourB*addaFFle, dim ? and the act that they are contrary notions points to their beingprinciples, original essences o the world ) and invites the reader to construe or eel

all these intensely, as contributors to the diverse beauties o the world.

http+,,www#poetryfoundation#org,poem,./00/12oworst there is none# Pitched past pitch of grief#19 (ERARD MA%LE #OP;.%0

2o worst there is none# Pitched past pitch of grief

3ore pangs will schooled at forepangs wilder wring#

4omforter where where is your comforting'

3ary mother of us where is your relief'

3y cries hea%e herds-long; huddle in a main a chief$oe w5rld-sorrow; on an "ge-old an%il wince and sing 6

7hen lull then lea%e off# Fury had shrieked 12o ling-

ering8 Let me be fell+ force 9 must be brief#:1

>This is also the name o an alternative modernist school o poetry led in 9ritain by

8yndham Gewis and in /merica by Fra +ound.
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173664http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/gerard-manley-hopkinshttp://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/gerard-manley-hopkinshttp://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173664http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/gerard-manley-hopkinshttp://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/gerard-manley-hopkins


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the mind mind has mountains; cliffs of fall

Frightful sheer no-man-fathomed# *old them cheap

3ay who ne1er hung there# 2or does long our small


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+atterns in +oetry +sychological 0tudies o magination J in the Ieader inContemporary Critical Theories)


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*ymn to Proserpine &!fter the Proclamation in =ome of the 4hristianFaith(9 AL (E R% O% C# AR LE 0 0+ .% 9U R% E

Vicisti, Galile.

9 ha%e li%ed long enough ha%ing seen one thing that lo%e hath an end;

Goddess and maiden and >ueen be near me now and befriend#

7hou art more than the day or the morrow the seasons that laugh or that weep;

For these gi%e ?oy and sorrow; but thou Proserpina sleep#

@weet is the treading of wine and sweet the feet of the do%e;

But a goodlier gift is thine than foam of the grapes or lo%e#

Aea is not e%en !pollo with hair and harpstring of gold

! bitter God to follow a beautiful God to behold'

9 am sick of singing; the bays burn deep and chafe+ 9 am fain

7o rest a little from praise and grie%ous pleasure and pain#

For the Gods we know not of who gi%e us our daily breath

$e know they are cruel as lo%e or life and lo%ely as death#

Gods dethroned and deceased cast forth wiped out in a day8

From your wrath is the world released redeemed from your chains men say#

2ew Gods are crowned in the city; their flowers ha%e broken your rods;

7hey are merciful clothed with pity the young compassionate Gods#

But for me their new de%ice is barren the days are bare;

7hings long past o%er suffice and men forgotten that were#

7ime and the Gods are at strife; ye dwell in the midst thereof

uered pale Galilean; the world has grown grey from thy breath;

$e ha%e drunken of things Lethean and fed on the fullness of death#

Laurel is green for a season and lo%e is sweet for a day;
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/algernon-charles-swinburnehttp://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/algernon-charles-swinburne


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But lo%e grows bitter with treason and laurel outli%es not 3ay#

@leep shall we sleep after all' for the world is not sweet in the end;

For the old faiths loosen and fall the new years ruin and rend#

Fate is a sea without shore and the soul is a rock that abides;

But her ears are %eCed with the roar and her face with the foam of the tides#

lips that the li%e blood faints in the lea%ings of racks and rods8

ghastly glories of saints dead limbs of gibbeted Gods8

7hough all men abase them before you in spirit and all knees bend

9 kneel not neither adore you but standing look to the end#

!ll delicate days and pleasant all spirits and sorrows are cast

Far out with the foam of the present that sweeps to the surf of the past+

$here beyond the eCtreme sea-wall and between the remote sea-gates

$aste water washes and tall ships founder and deep death waits+

Where, mighty with deepening sides, clad about with the seas as with wings,

And impelled of invisible tides, and fulfilled of unspeakable things,

White-eyed and poisonous-finned, shark-toothed and serpentine-curled,

Rolls, under the whitening wind of the future, the wave of the world.

The depths stand naked in sunder behind it, the storms flee away;

n the hollow before it the thunder is taken and snared as a prey;

n its sides is the north-wind bound; and its salt is of all men!s tears;

With light of ruin, and sound of changes, and pulse of years"

With travail of day after day, and with trouble of hour upon hour;

And bitter as blood is the spray; and the crests are as fangs that devour"

And its vapour and storm of its steam as the sighing of spirits to be;

And its noise as the noise in a dream; and its depth as the roots of the sea"

And the height of its heads as the height of the utmost stars of the air"And the ends of the earth at the might thereof tremble, and time is made bare.

$ill ye bridle the deep sea with reins will ye chasten the high sea with rods'

$ill ye take her to chain her with chains who is older than all ye Gods'

!ll ye as a wind shall go by as a fire shall ye pass and be past;

Ae are Gods and behold ye shall die and the wa%es be upon you at last#

9n the darkness of time in the deeps of the years in the changes of things

Ae shall sleep as a slain man sleeps and the world shall forget you for kings#

7hough the feet of thine high priests tread where thy lords and our forefathers trod

7hough these that were Gods are dead and thou being dead art a God

7hough before thee the throned 4ytherean be fallen and hidden her headAet thy kingdom shall pass Galilean thy dead shall go down to thee dead#

f the maiden thy mother men sing as a goddess with grace clad around;

7hou art throned where another was king; where another was >ueen she is crowned#

Aea once we had sight of another+ but now she is >ueen say these#

2ot as thine not as thine was our mother a blossom of flowering seas

4lothed round with the world1s desire as with raiment and fair as the foam


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!nd fleeter than kindled fire and a goddess and mother of =ome#

For thine came pale and a maiden and sister to sorrow; but ours

*er deep hair hea%ily laden with odour and colour of flowers

$hite rose of the rose-white water a sil%er splendour a flame

Bent down unto us that besought her and earth grew sweet with her name#

For thine came weeping a sla%e among sla%es and re?ected; but she

4ame flushed from the full-flushed wa%e and imperial her foot on the sea#

!nd the wonderful waters knew her the winds and the %iewless ways

!nd the roses grew rosier and bluer the sea-blue stream of the bays#

Ae are fallen our lords by what token' we wise that ye should not fall#

Ae were all so fair that are broken; and one more fair than ye all#

But 9 turn to her still ha%ing seen she shall surely abide in the end;

Goddess and maiden and >ueen be near me now and befriend#

daughter of earth of my mother her crown and blossom of birth

9 am also 9 also thy brother; 9 go as 9 came unto earth#

9n the night where thine eyes are as moons are in hea%en the night where thou art

$here the silence is more than all tunes where sleep o%erflows from the heart

$here the poppies are sweet as the rose in our world and the red rose is white

!nd the wind falls faint as it blows with the fume of the flowers of the night

!nd the murmur of spirits that sleep in the shadow of Gods from afar

Grows dim in thine ears and deep as the deep dim soul of a star

9n the sweet low light of thy face under hea%ens untrod by the sun

Let my soul with their souls find place and forget what is done and undone#

7hou art more than the Gods who number the days of our temporal breath;

Let these gi%e labour and slumber; but thou Proserpina death#

7herefore now at thy feet 9 abide for a season in silence# 9 know9 shall die as my fathers died and sleep as they sleep; e%en so#

For the glass of the years is brittle wherein we ga)e for a span;

! little soul for a little bears up this corpse which is man#

@o long 9 endure no longer; and laugh not again neither weep#

For there is no God found stronger than death; and death is a sleep#

The contestation o aith rom the point o view o a scientist in Thomas enryu%leys */gnosticism and Christianity (1-33) revolves around the discovery thatall statements should be supported by palpable proo, or else they are not worthbeing taen into consideration, in addition to being unprescribable as truths to be

recogniFed by any modern ree thiner.

The people who call themselves K/gnosticsK have been charged with

doing so because they have not the courage to declare themselves

Kn!dels.K t has been insinuated that they have adopted a new

name in order to escape the unpleasantness which attaches to their

proper denomination. To this wholly erroneous imputation, have


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replied by showing that the term K/gnosticK did, as a matter o act,

arise in a manner which negatives itB and my statement has not

been, and cannot be, reuted. &oreover, speaing or mysel, and

without impugning the right o any other person to use the term in

another sense, urther say that /gnosticism is not properlydescribed as a KnegativeK creed, nor indeed as a creed o any ind,

e%cept in so ar as it e%presses absolute aith in the validity o a

principle, which is as much ethical as intellectual. This principle may

be stated in various ways, but they all amount to this that it is

wrong or a man to say that he is certain o the ob

2014 5englishminormodule Four Creedsone

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