The Sacred and Secular Canon in Romanticism : Preserving the Sacred Truths

## Preface This book is a series of studies in European Romanticism, and the modern university, with its ever increasing demands in the classroom and in administration, is not the most romantic of environments. Study and the writing of books take time, and although I am not convinced, contra Harold Bloom, that the larger community owes to people like myself salaried leisure for our meditation, I am grateful, nonetheless, to the University of Glasgow for granting me study-leave in the spring and summer of 1997 to complete this work. Its various chapters, at differing stages of development, have been inflicted on my long-suffering colleagues and students in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies, and I thank them for their patience and constructive criticisms. My debt to Professor Stephen Prickett of the Department of English Literature in Glasgow is inestimable, and I thank him for his encouragement and guidance as a General Editor of the series of volumes of which this forms a part, for discussions over many years, and for everything that I have learnt from his own books on Romanticism and religion. Thanks are due also to Robert Detweiler, especially for his comments on Holderlin, Thomas Altizer, Elisabeth Jay, Cheryl Exum, Zephyra Porat, Kiyoshi Tsuchiya and others whose comments in countless conversations have given me ideas and corrected my mistakes. (Those which remain are, of course, entirely my own responsibility.) In particular I would like to thank the Principal, staff and students of Ripon College, Cuddesdon, for inviting me to be the Jaspers Lecturer in Oxford in February 1996, and for the opportunity then to explore ideas which eventually became Chapter 8.1 am no relation whatsoever of the philosopher Karl Jaspers, but this particular connection amused me, and I appreciated it. In addition, Dennis Taylor of Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, gave me invaluable assistance in the writing of Chapter 8. But it has been my family, inevitably, who have borne the brunt of my abstraction and obsession. Writing a book is not a particularly sociable activity, and this book has taken up more of my time than any family could reasonably expect. As a small token of my gratitude I dedicate it to my three children, Hannah, Ruth and May, ix X Preface though in no way does this lay upon them any requirement to read it, unless they so wish! An earlier version of Chapter 3 was published in Stanley E. Porter (ed.), The Nature of Religious Language: A Colloquium, Roehampton Institute London Papers No. 1 (Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), pp. 214-25. A version of Chapter 5 is to appear in Cheryl Exum (ed.), Although many books have studied writers and alcohol in modern American literature, the rich culture of drinking and the many poems and narratives about it in the Romantic period in England have been entirely neglected. Bacchus in Romantic England: Writers and Drink 1780-1830 is the first study to describe the bulk and variety of writings about drinking to set these poems, novels, essays, letters and journals in a historical, sociological, and medical context to demonstrate the importance of drunkenness in the works of a number of major and minor writers of the period and to suggest that during these years, for a short time, the pleasures and pains of drinking are held in a vivacious balance. The book argues that the figure of the drinker tests the margins of the human being, either as a beast, savage, or thing or, on the other edge of the human range, as a free, inspired spirit "This book focuses on some of the greatest writers and artists of European Romanticism, including S. T. Coleridge, Wordsworth, J. M. W. Turner, Goethe, Holderlin and, in the later nineteenth century, Matthew Arnold. Concluding with a discussion of the significance of Romanticism for our understanding of postmodernity, its various chapters explore the place of the biblical canon as the central element in the shift from the sacred to the secular, and the place of the Bible in the development of our concept of Weltliteratur, or world literature, as definitive of culture. This book will be of interest to all concerned with art, literature and the development of biblical criticism and religious thought."--BOOK JACKET This book is an interdisciplinary study of Romanticism which focuses on the reception of the Biblical canon in poetry, art and theory. The Bible is acknowledged as the heart of European culture, but as its status as the sacred text of Judaism and Christianity becomes questionable, it remains at the turning-point between sacred and secular art in the modern world. The insights of Romanticism are crucial for our understanding of postmodernism as a fundamentally religious movement which acknowledges both the death and rebirth of religious language. Front Matter....Pages i-x Introduction: Can These Dry Bones Live?....Pages 1-10 ‘Mediator between Old and New World’....Pages 11-25 Living Powers: Sacred and Secular Language....Pages 26-40 Hölderlin and Holy Scripture....Pages 41-55 Light and Darkness: J. M. W. Turner and the Bible....Pages 56-71 Weltliteratur and the Biblical Critics....Pages 72-87 Matthew Arnold: Between Two Worlds....Pages 88-99 The Death and Rebirth of Religious Language....Pages 100-115 Conclusion: Into the Twentieth Century....Pages 116-130 Back Matter....Pages 131-158