Jane Austen and Religion : Salvation and Society in Georgian England

Michael Giffin offers a reading of Austen's six published novels against the background of a 'long 18th century' that stretched from the Restoration to the Regency. He demonstrates that Austen is a neoclassical author of the enlightenment who writes through the twin prisms of British Empiricism and Georgian Anglicanism. Giffin's focus is on how Austen's novels mirror a belief in natural law and natural order and how they reflect John Locke's theory of knowledge through reason, revelation, and reflection on experience. Machine generated contents note: 1 The Economy of Salvation 1 The Novels and Literary Criticism 1 The Novels and Neoclassical Hermeneutics 6 The Novels and British Empiricism 12 The Novels and Unregulated Capitalism 16 The Novels and Georgian Anglicanism 23 The Novels and The Economy of Salvation 30 2 Northanger Abbey 37 The Contemporary Context of Northanger Abbey 37 Northanger Abbey and The Economy of Salvation 40 Catherine Morland as a Georgian Antiheroine 48 Henry Tilney as a Georgian Antihero 56 3 Sense and Sensibility 63 The Contemporary Context of Sense and Sensibility 63 Reason Informed by Feeling: The Marriage of 69 Elinor and Edward Feeling Informed by Reason: The Marriage of Marianne 80 and The Colonel 4 Pride and Prejudice 92 Pride and Prejudice and Neoclassical Hermeneutics 92 The Clash of Horizons in Hertfordshire 93 The Dialogue of Horizons in Kent 102 The Fusion of Horizons in Derbyshire 111 5 Mansfield Park 126 The Contemporary Context of Mansfield Park 126 God the Father: Sir Thomas Bertram and a Critique of 129 Enlightenment Deism God the Son: Fanny Price as an Archetype of 138 Redemptive Suffering God the Holy Spirit: Edmund Bertram and a Worldly 143 Church in Need of Renewal 6 Emma 149 Marriage, Manners, and The Implied Social Contract 149 A Trinity of Complementary Marriages: God and 157 Humanity, Estate and Parish, Man and Woman Marriage and Bad Oikonomia in The Parish 160 Marriage and Good Oikonomia in The Estate 167 7 Persuasion 177 Marriage and The Soteria of The Georgian Estate 177 Marriage and The Decline of Kellynch 180 Marriage and The Rise of Uppercross 187 The Marriage of Anne Elliot to Frederick Wentworth 195. "Jane Austen in often thought of as a secular author, because religion seems absent from her novels, because she satirises her clerical characters, and because the history of literary criticism - and the literary sensibility of the twenty-first century reader - is overwhelmingly secular. Michael Giffin offers a reading of Austen's published novels against the background of a 'long eighteenth century' that stretched from the Restoration to the end of the Georgian period. He demonstrates that Austen is a neoclassical author of the Enlightenment who writes through the twin prisms of British Empiricism and Georgian Anglicanism. His focus is on how Austen's novels mirror a belief in natural law and natural order; and how they reflect John Locke's theory of knowledge through reason, revelation and reflection on experience. His reading suggests there is a thread of neoclassical philosophy and theology running through and between each of Austen's novels, which is best understood in its cultural context."--BOOK JACKET. Jane Austen is often thought of as a secular author, because religion seems absent from her novels, because she satirises her clerical characters, and because history and literacy criticism - and the literary sensibility of the twenty-first century reader - is overwhelmingly secular. Michael Giffin offers a reading of Austen's published novels against the background of a 'long eighteenth century' that stretched from the Restoration to the end of the Georgian period. He demonstrates that Austen is a neoclassical author of the Enlightenment who writes through the twin prisms of British Empiricism and Georgian Anglicanism. His focus is on how Austen's novels mirror a belief in natural law and natural order; and how they reflect John Locke's theory of knowledge through reason, revelation and reflection on experience. His reading suggests there is a thread of neoclassical philosophy and theology running through and between each of Austen's novels, which is best understood in its cultural context. "This book marks a step forward in Rossetti studies, by giving serious consideration to the theological content of Christina Rossetti's devotional prose volumes as well as an appreciation of their literary content. Long devalued and ignored, these volumes show a unique blend of literary and theological insights, and display a clarity of vision not always present in her poetry. Rossetti's relationship to the Great Tractarians is explored, as is her rejection of their notions of 'worldliness' and her revaluation of the female body and spirit. An exciting picture of Rossetti emerges: a foremother of modern feminist theology, fighting for environmental and animal protection, and fiercely defending those women who have been exploited or degraded."--Jacket This essential guide explores and celebrates the rise and development of modernist and avant-garde literatures and theories in the period 1910-1945, from Imagism to the Apocalypse movement. Jane Goldman charts transitions in writing, reading, performing and publishing practices, and in international groupings and regroupings of writers and artists, and interrogates the term 'Modernism' which labels the era. Goldman introduces students to the work of many canonical high modernist writers, such as Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, W.B. Yeats, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, and samples the work of other important modernist figures, including Nathanael West, John Rodker, Aldous Huxley and the Harlem Renaissance poets Michael Giffin offers a reading of Austen's six published novels against the background of a 'long eighteenth century' that stretched from the Restoration to the Regency. He demonstrates that Austen is a neoclassical author of the enlightenment who writes through the twin prisms of British Empiricism and Georgian Anglicanism. Giffin's focus is on how Austen's novels mirror a belief in natural law and natural order; and how they reflect John Locke's theory of knowledge through reason, revelation, and reflection on experience Michael Giffin. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 205-211) And Index.