Literature, Religion, and the Evolution of Culture, 1660-1780

by Howard D. Weinbrot

Overview

A distinguished critic traces the growing, but always threatened, trend toward political and religious tolerance from the mid-seventeenth to the late eighteenth century in Britain.

Winner of the CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title of the Choice ACRL

Literature, Religion, and the Evolution of Culture, 1660–1780 chronicles changes in contentious politics and religion and their varied representations in British letters from the mid-seventeenth to the late eighteenth century. An uncertain trend toward tolerance and away from painful discord significantly influenced authors who reflected on and enhanced germane aspects of British literary and intellectual life. The movement was stymied during the painful Gordon Riots in June 1780, from which Britain needed to repair itself.

Howard D. Weinbrot's broad-ranging interdisciplinary study considers sermons, satire, political and religious polemic, Anglo-French relations, biblical and theological commentary, Methodism, legal history, and the novel. Literature, Religion, and the Evolution of Culture, 1660–1780 analyzes the texts and contexts of several major and minor authors, including Daniel Defoe, Charles Dickens, Olaudah Equiano, Maria De Fleury, Lord George Gordon, Nathaniel Lancaster, Henry Sacheverell, Tobias Smollett, and Edward Synge.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781421405162
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date:	05/17/2013
Pages:	392
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.30(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Howard D. Weinbrot is the Ricardo Quintana Professor of English and William Freeman Vilas Research Professor in the College of Letters and Science, University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction. The Groundwork of Change 1

Eighteenth-Century Evolutionary Theory 2

Practical Awareness 3

The Chapters and a Definition 11

A Note on Notes 16

Part I Threats to the Species: Madness, Discontent, and the Danger of Dissolution

Chapter 1 Causation and Contexts of Hatred: Savage Beasts Mortal and Deadly 23

Conjuring Up Reasons: Original Sin, Fragile Connections, Church and State 27

Aristocratic Historiography: Advocacy and Resistance 32

Metaphorical Enhancements: Floods, Propagation, Legions, and Dutch Treats 36

Chapter 2 Madness, Extirpation, and Defoe's Shortest Way with the Dissenters 55

Madness 55

Root and Branch 57

Defoe's Shortest Way, Sacheverell's Political Union, and Religious Conflict 66

The Shortest Way: The Bible and Other Clues beyond the Obvious 73

Response and Judgment 80

Defoe as a Character of His Own Creation 84

Part II Taking the Cure and Improving the Species: Sermons, Compulsion, and Methodists

Chapter 3 The Thirtieth of January Sermon: From Extermination to Inclusion 105

The Thirtieth of January Sermon and Royalist Law 105

The High Church Response and the Beginning of Change 109

Higher Church and Moderate Responses to the High Church Response 116

Raising the Decibels in a Lowered Church 119

State, Not Church 123

God's Hand, William's Hand, and the Divine Right of Government 127

Retrospective 132

Chapter 4 "Compel Them to Come In," Luke 14:23: From Persecution to Persuasion; Against Augustinian Compulsion 144

Revocation of the Edict of Nantes: Response and Rage 146

Contexts Changed and Augustine Charged 156

Happy Had His Works Not Been Preserved 159

Persuade Them to Come In 165

Adopt Men From All the Nations of the Earth: Equiano's Conversion 168

Chapter 5 Methodism: From Antagonist to Relation 181

The Spreading Fog 182

Reforming the Reformation? Reforming Reform? 188

Grudging Acceptance 200

Humphry Clinker: Joining the Family 207

Part III Evolutionary Reversion: The Gordon Riots, Return to Rage, and Reinventing a Cure

Chapter 6 Déjà Vu All Over Again? The Gordon Riots; Bedlam Revisited, Restoration of Order, and a Trial on Trial 237

Repeal, No Popery, and the Gordon Riots: Destruction and the Puritan Redivivus 238

Renovating the Language of Cultural Regress 243

Church, State, and Political Causation 249

Strategies of Defense and Alternative Responses 257

"What Is to Depose the Sword?": The Return to Order; Debate, Arrest, Trial, and Consequences 261

The Trial of Lord George Gordon for Treason, 1781 268

Chapter 7 A Very Near Thing: State Terrorism, the Fury of the Aggrieved, and Incompatibility with the Safety of Millions 289

A River Too Far 291

The Trials of Lord George Gordon, 1786-1787, and Excommunication 294

The Trials of Lord George Gordon, 1786-1787: Libeling France and Britain 298

Aftermath: Flight, Conversion, and Sentence 310

True Colors: Robert Watson's Life of Lord George Gordon 315

Chapter 8 Coping, Repairing, and Dickens' Barnaby Rudge 330

How to Cope? The World after the Gordon Riots 330

Dickens' Barnaby Rudge: To Point a Moral but Not Adorn a Tale; The Victorian Retrospective and Punishment by Neglect 332

Conclusion, Summary, Implications 343

A Brief Summary of a Long Book 343

Illustrating Evolution 346

Index 357

What People are Saying About This

Robert D. Hume

This is a deeply learned, provocative, readable book that will be an ornament to The Johns Hopkins University Press. It is a commandingly impressive book by one of the principal scholars in an established field.

From the Publisher

This is a deeply learned, provocative, readable book that will be an ornament to The Johns Hopkins University Press. It is a commandingly impressive book by one of the principal scholars in an established field.
—Robert D. Hume, Pennsylvania State University

Editorial Reviews

Each chapter is brilliant, informed by Weinbrot's astonishingly wide reading and ability to make the past come alive . . . As he has done before, Weinbrot makes serious intellectual history fun . . . Highly recommended.
—Choice

Professor Weinbrot ranges wide and delves deep in this study, which could nostalgically be called intellectual history. . . Moreover, Weinbrot provides accurate and succinct historical summaries along the way.
—Robert G. Walker, Eighteenth-Century Intelligencer

Literature, Religion, and the Evolution of Culture is a formidable work of scholarship written by one of the period’s sharpest critics. Its erudition is pronounced, its analysis acute. . .
—Digital Defoe

Weinbrot’s examination of the gradual evolution of English cultural perceptions of religious “others” makes an important contribution to eighteenth-century studies.
—The University of Chicago Press

Mr. Weinbrot’s study is an infinitely rewarding sourcebook for important eighteenth-century religious concepts (including passive obedience, the Thirtieth of January Sermon, or Augustinianism) and movements (such as Methodism). Without doubt, he offers a most impressive reconstruc- tion of the raging religious feuds. Moreover, his study of Defoe’s monumental Shortest Way with the Dissenters is as careful as it is penetrating. His book is informed by his keen sense of injustice: its pages are suffused with his indignation about cruelties, such as the ‘‘state terrorism’’. . .
—Scriblerian

. . . a watershed moment in our field.
—Notes and Queries

From the Publisher

Literature, Religion, and the Evolution of Culture is a formidable work of scholarship written by one of the period’s sharpest critics. Its erudition is pronounced, its analysis acute. . .

Digital Defoe

. . . a watershed moment in our field.

Notes and Queries

Each chapter is brilliant, informed by Weinbrot's astonishingly wide reading and ability to make the past come alive . . . As he has done before, Weinbrot makes serious intellectual history fun . . . Highly recommended.

Choice

Professor Weinbrot ranges wide and delves deep in this study, which could nostalgically be called intellectual history. . . Moreover, Weinbrot provides accurate and succinct historical summaries along the way.

Eighteenth-Century Intelligencer - Robert G. Walker

Weinbrot’s examination of the gradual evolution of English cultural perceptions of religious “others” makes an important contribution to eighteenth-century studies.

The University of Chicago Press

Mr. Weinbrot’s study is an infinitely rewarding sourcebook for important eighteenth-century religious concepts (including passive obedience, the Thirtieth of January Sermon, or Augustinianism) and movements (such as Methodism). Without doubt, he offers a most impressive reconstruc- tion of the raging religious feuds. Moreover, his study of Defoe’s monumental Shortest Way with the Dissenters is as careful as it is penetrating. His book is informed by his keen sense of injustice: its pages are suffused with his indignation about cruelties, such as the ‘‘state terrorism’’. . .

Scriblerian

"Weinbrot’s examination of the gradual evolution of English cultural perceptions of religious "others" makes an important contribution to eighteenth-century studies."

The University of Chicago Press