Romanticism and the Religious Revival in England

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Romanticism and the Religious Revival in EnglandAuthor(s): Hoxie N. FairchildSource: Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 2, No. 3 (Jun., 1941), pp. 330-338Published by: University of Pennsylvania PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2707135 .

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ROMANTICISM AND THE RELIGIOUS REVIVAL INENGLANDBY HOXIE N. FAIRCHILD

I confinemyself o Romanticism n connectionwith the OxfordMovement. Even thusrestricted, he subject is bothextensiveanddifficult.Newman, after all that has been writtenabout him byhimselfand others,remains a baffling igure; and his associates,though simpler as individuals, present wide differences f char-acter and religioustemper. And now thisvaried, fluctuating odyofphenomenamustbe studiedin connectionwith an undefined ndprobably undefinable oncept! Which is the more Romantic,themild, purely Anglican saint, John Keble, or the violentlyUltra-montane theocrat,W. G. Ward? Of the fourteenpioneers whowrote Tracts for the Times, only Newman joined the Church ofRome; all the othersecedersbelongedto thegroupof youngermen,less interested n thePrimitivethan in theUniversal Church,whoadded theirimpatienceto the movementbetween 1839 and 1845.1Was it moreRomantic to followNewman,or to stay behindwithPusey? Professor Lovejoy has contended that there are many"Romanticisms," whichthehistorianoughtcarefullyto discrimi-nate; the observation s pertinent o thespecial themeof thispaper.To some slight extent, Romantic literature influencedthethought nd feelingof the Oxfordmen. Muchmore mportantly,tprepared large sectionsofthe generalpublic to receiveideas whichwould have been bewilderingor repugnant if presented withoutwarning, n all their rigor,by the Tractarians. The movement,however,was by no means the child of Romantic poetry. It de-pended upon a quite differentradition. Althoughthroughout heeighteenthcenturythe motives of most High Churchmenwerepolitical rather than religious,the more spiritual Anglo-Catholi-cismof theCaroline divinesdid notwhollydisappear. It was pre-served by the Nonjurors and by otherHigh Churchmensuch asBishop Wilson. Keble said that theideas of theTractarians were"the same as whatmyfatheralways taughtme. 2 In the closingyears of theeighteenth entury nd theopeningyears of the nine-teenth, his type of churchmanshipwas encouraged by the decayof rationalismand bytheconservativereactionagainst theFrenchRevolution. Archdeacon Daubeny, in his Guide to the Church' The fact s notedbyIsaac Williams n hisAutobiography1892), p. 120.2 E. Wood,JohnKeble,p. 2. 330


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ROMANTICISM AND RELIGION IN ENGLAND 331(1798), and Bishop Van Mildert, n his 1814 Bampton Lectures,de-fended the Real Presence and maintained the Apostolic Succes-sion as the basis ofChurchauthority nd of the validity of the sac-raments. Their somewhatchilly ecclesiasticismwas warmedwithEvangelical fervor by Alexander Knox. Bishop Jebb was hisfriend and pupil. For some years before1833 a layman,JoshuaWatson, was the center of a definitelyAnglo-Catholic group atClapton. Cambridgehad an embryonic Oxford Movement" evenbefore Oxford,withChristopherWordsworth, he poet's brother,and Hugh JamesRose as leading members. The latterlent adviceand aid to the Oxfordmen at the beginningof theircampaign.3These stirringsof the Anglo-Catholicspirit were broughtto ahead by the threatsof a triumphant iberalism whose ideals werehostile to those ofthe historic Church. The repeal of theTest andCorporation Acts in 1828, and the emancipation of the RomanCatholics in the followingyear, placed Dissenters and Papists onthe same political footing as Anglicans. The Reform Bill con-signed the Establishmentto the tendermercies of a Parliament nolonger essentially Anglican or even essentially Christian. Theministry proposed ecclesiastical reformsfor Ireland which in-cluded the abolition of tenIrish bishoprics: the heirs of the Apos-tles were to be cashiered, like so many superfluous lerks,at thebiddingof an apostate secular power. Even more radical changeswere in the air, and Bentham observed withpleasure that "TheChurch of England is ripe for dissolution."4 "The Whigs hadcome intopower," wroteNewmanin later years; "Lord Grey hadtold thebishops to set theirhouse in order,and some of the prel-ates had been insulted and threatened n the streets of London.The vital questionwas how were we to keep the Churchfrombe-coming iberalised?"' The preface to the second editionof TractsfortheTimes (1835) declares that "the prospectof the oss of stateprotection . . made itnecessaryto look outforother reasons foradherenceto theChurchbesides obedienceto the civilmagistrate."In thiscrisis it was necessaryto showthat theAnglican priesthoodderived ts authority, ot fromthe Reform Parliament of 1832,butfrom the Holy Apostles.

3For an excellent reatmentf the subjectof thisparagraph,see Chap. IV ofYngveBrilioth'sTheAnglicanRevival.4 H. J. Laski, Studies n theProblemofSovereignty, . 69.5 Apologia pro Vita Sua (Everyman'sLibrary,n.d.), p. 52. Thisunpretentiousbut convenientdition s used throughout.


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332 HOXIE N. FAIRCHILDThe Tractarians, however,were not merely reviving the oldTory war-cryof "The Church in danger!" Althoughdoubtlesstheir propaganda appealed to many parsons whose sole concern

was to protectthe vested interestsof their caste, the motives ofKeble, Froude, Newman and Pusey were as purely religious ashuman motivespossibly can be in a world where God and Mammonare so closelyintertwined. For them, iberalismwas even more aspiritual than a political peril-a denial of everything mplied bythat not very Romantic assertion, "I believe one Catholic andApostolic Church." Theyat oncebegan to preach the doctrinesonwhichtheiranti-Erastianideals were grounded, nd in so doingsetin motionwhat we call the Oxford Movement.These are the onlyfacts absolutelyessential to an understand-ing oftheoriginsof the Revival. The influence f Romantic liter-ature on this historical core, though certainlyworth noting, isslight. In the eighteenth century,the submerged tradition ofAnglo-Catholicism s so foreignto the spirit of the age that italmost never finds literary expression. The Nonjuror WilliamLaw may seem to be an exception, ut he was muchmore nfluentialas a practicalmoralist and later as a mystic han as a defenderofthe Apostolic Church. That complex of naturalistic hankeringswhichstudentsof literature call "pre-Romanticism" is emphati-callynotpre-Tractarian. The sentimentaldeism whichpointsfor-ward to the religious experience of the great Romantics is theeternalfoe of the Catholic ideal. After studyingthe work of 130poets who flourishedbetween1700 and 1740, I have argued else-wherethat the eighteenth-centuryult of sentiment s thoroughlyWhiggish and Protestant, and that it descends, through latitu-dinarianism,fromthe Low ChurchAnglicanismand Nonconform-ity of the seventeenth entury.6 Pre-Romantic sentimentalism sPuritanism in a more or less pleasingly phosphorescent state ofdecay. For our purposes it is especially significant hat the liter-arymedievalismof theeighteenth entury,when t does not ignorereligion entirely, s doggedly anti-Catholic. Poets temper theirenthusiasm for ruined abbeys with severe reflectionsupon thelazy, superstitious,hypocriticalmonks who inhabited them. Chat-terton,whose Rowley forgeries arose from his passion for theChurchof St. Mary Redeliffe, hould have been an Anglo-Catholic,butas a matterof facthe was a sneering sceptic.In France and Germany,the crest of Romanticism coincides

6H. N. Fairchild,ReligiousTrends in English Poetry. Vol. I: Protestantismand theCult ofSentiment, 700-1740.


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ROMANTICISM AND RELIGION IN ENGLAND 333with a revival of Catholicism. In England, on the contrary, heOxfordMovementdoes not begin until the close of the RomanticPeriod proper. The great poets who flourishbetween 1780 and1830 do not, in their most representativeworks, sound like pre-cursors of Tractarianism. NotBlake, surely,or Burns, or Shelley.Byron had an uneasy respect for the Catholic Church, nd was oneof those libertines who like to have their illegitimate daughterseducated in convents; but of course the Tractarians regarded theauthor of Cain with horror.7 Keats probably appealed to thelater,more aestheticgenerationof Puseyites, but we are concern-ing ourselves with thefirsthalf of the century.

With Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey the situation ismore complex. In those works which any professor of Englishwould select to illustrate the qualities of Romantic poetry, theLake Poets seem completely detached from the Anglo-Catholictradition. Gradually,however,they entera conservative phase inwhich their religious and political sympathies are somewhat akinto those of the Tractarians. Naturally therefore he Tractariansadmired them, ndwere quitewilling ointerpret heirearlier,moredistinctivelyRomantic work in the light of their later,more edi-fyinglyAnglican productions. Parsons are always delighted tofind poet who seems to be on theside of theangels. In his articleon "The State of Religious Partiesi' in British Critic for April,1839, Newman praises the workofWordsworth nd Southey "as areaction from the dry and superficialcharacter of the religiousteachingand the literature of the last generation,or century, ndas a resultoftheneed whichwas felt bothbythe hearts and by theintellectsof the nation for a deeper philosophy."8Keble's Christian Year (1827) has been termed the connectinglinkbetweenRomanticism nd theOxfordMovementS9 because ofits indebtedness o thepoetryofWordsworth. That indebtedness,however is exaggeratedbythose who regardthesacramental viewof nature as an element ommon oRomanticand historicCatholicthought."0He who looks upon the Creation afterrisingfrom the

7For a typicalexamplesee Isaac Williams, Autobiography, . 7: "The subtlepoisonof thesebooksdidmeincalculable njuryformanyyears; themoreso as theinfidelity as so veiled n beautifulverseand refinedentiment."

8 Apologia,p. 104.9 Brilioth,TheAnglicanBevival,p. 71.10See forexampleH. S. Holland in his Introduction o Lyra Apostolica (Li-braryof DevotionSeries), p. xliii: "The worldwas sacramental. That whichwas atruism nsidetheChurch,Wordsworth ad long ago verifiedn his own experience.Naturewas thesymbolic tterance f the unseenGod."


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334 IIOXIE N. FAIRCHILDaltar-railshas a view of nature radically different rom himwho,ignoring the tabernacle,represents things in general as "sacra-mental" in a vague, unfocussed,quasi-pantheisticsense. Keblehas a strongfeeling-derived largely fromButler's Analogy-oftheharmonybetweenthe natural and thesupernatural revelations.But even in his nature-poetry hristianfaith s absolutelycentral,whereas the "visionary gleam" in Wordsworth's most character-istic workhas no specific onnectionwithChristianity.This distinction pplies evenmoreemphatically o theverse ofNewman, Isaac Williams, Froude, and the minor contributors oLyra Apostolica. Like almost all English lyrical writingotherthan that of theneo-classical period,it is "Romantic" in the loosesense ofbeingprimarilyemotional and imaginative,but its exclu-sive devotionto the Catholic conception of the Church separatesit sharplyfromthemain trend of English Romanticpoetry,whichis seldomChristianand almostnever Catholic.Coleridge as a poet made little or no impressionupon the Ox-ford men. The theological speculations of his later period oftranscendentalconservatismwere more influential mong BroadChurchmen han among Tractarians. But although,accordingtoNewman,"he indulgeda libertyof speculationwhichno Christiancan tolerate,"11his attemptto provide a philosophical basis forfaith was of service to the movement. "He had taken," writesDean Church,"the simple but all-important tep of viewing theChurchin its spiritual character as first nd foremostand aboveall thingsessentiallya religious societyof divine institution, otdependenton the creation or will of man."" But even here theinfluence f Coleridge was corroborativerather than formative:Newman firstmade acquaintance with his work n 1835.To Sir Walter Scott the Tractarians acknowledgeda consider-able debt.'3 His Romanticismwas very superficial, nd he wouldhave shrunkwithhorrorfromany imputationof popery. But heloved the Latin hymns,and his imaginative antiquarianism re-spondedto old abbeys as well as to old castles. Though lackinginanyreal understanding f Catholicreligion,he respectedthemedi-eval Church as a part of that fabric of feudal loyalties whichappealed tohis sentimentalToryism. Unquestionablyhis idealizedpicture of the Middle Ages did much to softenthe anti-Catholicprejudices of Englishmen. But whilehis influence n the Oxford

1fApologia, p. 105.12 R. W. Church,The OxfordMovement 1922), p. 148.13 E. A. Knox, The TractarianMovement, . 30.


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336 HOXIE N. FAIRCHILDof devotion, nd othersentiments,which can be called Catholic.""14These indeed are feelingswhichthe Catholic and everyotherper-son of religious sensibilityshare with the Romanticist. But theCatholic enjoys themwithina framework f traditionalauthority,dogmatic discipline, and objective ritualistic technique whichwoulddeprivethem fall charmfor a Romanticist. The Tractarianloves mystery,not for itself, but for the sharply-defined ruthswhich Holy Church brings forth from its darkness. Tractariantruth is intuitive and precise; Romantic truth is intuitive andshadowy.In Romanticthought, elief s highly ndividual and subjective.It is an active,creative assertion of the ego, akin to the "higher"reason, the transcendentalfaculty, and the shaping spirit of im-agination. For theOxfordMovement, n thecontrary, he essenceof belief is not self-assertion, ut self-denial. In Loss and Gain,Newman's largely autobiographicalnovel, a Romanist priest tellsthe hero thatpeople "will not be blessed, theywill effectnothingin religiousmatters,till they begin by an act of unreservedfaithin theword ofGod,whatever t be; till they go out of themselves;till theycease to make somethingwithinthemtheir standard."'5Might we notsubstitute, till theycease to be Romantic'" ?Thus, even when Tractarianism is studied in relation to thebroadestpossibledefinition fRomanticism, omeof tsmost essen-tial features make us hesitate to label it as Romanticwithout m-portantreservations. But at this point a narrowerconception ofRomanticismpresses its claims. Medievalismwas one of themainRomantictrends,and the Tractarians were medievalists. Surely,however,one can find trangenessand glamor in the Middle Ageswithoutbeing attractedtowards Catholicism in any but the mostsuperficialrespects, and conversely,one can follow the march ofthe Apostolic Church throughthose centurieswithout smackingone s lips over the flavor of old ballads. Unquestionablythe Ox-fordmenrespondedto theRomanticcharmoftheMiddle Ages; itis theirmostsignificant ointofcontactwith iteraryRomanticism.The Tracts for the Times, however, do not primarilyrepresent ayearningforoldenwitchery. One can hardlythink fwritings essillustrative of what Watts-Dunton calls "the renascence ofwonder."In this connectionwe should guard against telescoping theTractarianism of 1833-1845 with the ritualisticphase which the

14 Quoted fromE. A. Knox, The Tractarian Movement, . 369.15 Loss and Gain (1874), p. 386.


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ROMANTICISM AND RELIGION IN ENGLAND 337movement ad enteredby the 1860's. The Tractarian leaders wereritualistsas upholdingthe importanceof sacramental rites,whichof course should be performedwithdignity nd traditionalcorrect-ness, but there is abundant evidence that theycared little aboutceremonialfor ts ownsake.'6 Their austerity hrankfrom ll thatwas luscious, over-elaborate,prettified. The foundations of theirCatholicismweredogmatic,not aesthetic.Generally speaking,theEnglish RomanticMovement llustrateswhat may be called "liberal" Romanticism. The religion of theliberal Romanticist s a Protestantismwhich has broken downintoa quasi-pantheistickindof deism. His sense of divine immanencehas almost wholly submergedhis sense of divine transcendence,and he likes to thinkof God, man,and nature as interfused n onegreat cosmicharmony. He believes in natural goodness, themoralsense, the inner light,the powers of genius. He likes to thinkofhis imaginationas a creativeforceakin to thatwhich has thoughtthe universe ntobeing. Creeds,rules, ogical formulas, harp dis-tinctions,external controls of every sort, are repugnant to him.Shunningthepermanent nd normative elementsof life, he revelsin spontaneity,diversity, uniqueness, individual expansiveness.His politicsrangefrommildlyhumanitarianWhiggeryto an emo-tional sortof radicalism.One can describetheOxfordMovement n a single sentencebysayingthatit is, in every respect,the exact reverse of thistypeofRomanticism. Even if time permittedme to support this state-ment, o do so beforethis audience would hardlybe necessary. Itis impossibleto imaginea more absolute antithesis. Not Newman,butKingsley,is the childof liberal Romanticism.In myownthinking, hat have here called liberal Romanticismcovers every thing that I regard as genuinelyRomantic. Eventhose who disagree will grant that my descriptionapplies to themost characteristicproductsof Romantic art and provides the ac-cepted basis for distinguishingRomanticismfromClassicism. Itis also significant hat the French,German and English RomanticMovementsbegin with liberal Romanticism. Witness Rousseau,the StiirmerundDrdnger,and theyoungLakists with theirenthu-siasm for the French Revolution.But Mr. Laski asserts that "in its broader aspects, Tractar-ianismis no morethantheEnglish side of thatreactionaryRoman-

16 Church,The OxfordMovement 1922), p. 141; Liddon, Life of Pusey, IV,212; Newman, Apologia, p. 271; Brilioth, The Anglican Revival, pp. 325-326;Baker, The Novel and the OxfordMovement, . 70.


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338 HOXIE N. FAIRCHILDticismwhich, n theContinent, rovemen like Schlegel back to theideals of the Roman Church."'7 This "reactionary" Romanti-cism deservesmuchcloser analysis than t has yet received. It willbe found, think, o be a mixtureof a political and religiousconser-vatism which not only is not Romantic, but is essentially anti-Romantic, and a thwarted liberal Romanticism which has beenthrown nto uneasy alliance with that conservatismby the courseof European history. The liberal Romanticist turns to theMiddleAges for glamor, imaginative expansion, freedomfrom classicalrestraints. But the French Revolution shocks him, Napoleonscares him, he ncreasinglyrationalistictingeof the reformmove-ment thwartshis cravingfor a warmlymuddled emotionalexperi-ence. Hence,unlesshemercifully ies young,he is likelyto becomea sentimentalreactionary. He will now look to the Middle Agesfor deals ofdiscipline, oyalty, nd traditionalcontinuity,nd con-sequently he may develop a good deal of politically motivatedrespectfor the historicChurch. At the same time,however,hemaypreserve something of the thrill of his youthfulmedievalismbyusingthe Catholicreligionas a means of satisfying mpulseswhichare notCatholic at all.Although his pseudo-CatholicRomanticism s notunfamiliar othosewhohave observedthe behavior of present-dayAnglo-Cath-olics, t is bynomeans thepeculiar possession of theAnglicancom-munion. There is no objective way ofdetermining owlarge a partit played in the Oxford Movement. Individual membersvary inthis respect: Hurrell Froude, for example, has more of it thanPusey. One must grant that as the movement pread it attractedmany superficial, nsincere, and "arty" little people who merelyplayed at being Catholic and whomNewman mercilesslysatirizesinLoss and Gain. This elementbecame stronger n thesecondhalfofthe century,whenAnglo-Catholicritualism,no longer guided byOxford, sometimes mingled with the Romanticism of the Pre-Raphaelites and even ofthefin-de-siecleecadents. I believe,how-ever,thatfrom1833 to thepresent day thecore of the Revival is afaith which stands in eternal opposition to the Romantic spirit.That I have failed to prove this statement am well aware, but Ithink have shownthat the OxfordMovement should not be de-scribed byhistoriansmerelyas a special manifestationof Roman-ticism.HunterCollege oftheCityofNew York.

17 Studiesin theProblemof Sovereignty, . 69.

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