Rituals of Spontaneity: Sentiment and Secularism from Free Prayer to Wordsworth
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a new-found love of spontaneity transformed Christian worship and revolutionized the Enlightenment's "culture of sensibility." Rituals of Spontaneity tells the story of how and why spontaneity came to be so revered. Using archival material and works of Bunyan, Shaftesbury, Goldsmith, Smart and Wordsworth, Branch shows that the rise of spontaneity was intimately connected to the forces of commerce and science at the dawn of the Enlightenment. By focusing on the language in which spontaneity was defended and on its psychological repercussions, Rituals of Spontaneity challenges previous understanding of secularization and demonstrates the deep, often troubling connections between religion and secularism in modernity.

Winner of the Book of the Year Award for the Conference on Christianity and Literature.

1111034487
Rituals of Spontaneity: Sentiment and Secularism from Free Prayer to Wordsworth
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a new-found love of spontaneity transformed Christian worship and revolutionized the Enlightenment's "culture of sensibility." Rituals of Spontaneity tells the story of how and why spontaneity came to be so revered. Using archival material and works of Bunyan, Shaftesbury, Goldsmith, Smart and Wordsworth, Branch shows that the rise of spontaneity was intimately connected to the forces of commerce and science at the dawn of the Enlightenment. By focusing on the language in which spontaneity was defended and on its psychological repercussions, Rituals of Spontaneity challenges previous understanding of secularization and demonstrates the deep, often troubling connections between religion and secularism in modernity.

Winner of the Book of the Year Award for the Conference on Christianity and Literature.

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Rituals of Spontaneity: Sentiment and Secularism from Free Prayer to Wordsworth

Rituals of Spontaneity: Sentiment and Secularism from Free Prayer to Wordsworth

by Lori Branch
Rituals of Spontaneity: Sentiment and Secularism from Free Prayer to Wordsworth

Rituals of Spontaneity: Sentiment and Secularism from Free Prayer to Wordsworth

by Lori Branch

Overview

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a new-found love of spontaneity transformed Christian worship and revolutionized the Enlightenment's "culture of sensibility." Rituals of Spontaneity tells the story of how and why spontaneity came to be so revered. Using archival material and works of Bunyan, Shaftesbury, Goldsmith, Smart and Wordsworth, Branch shows that the rise of spontaneity was intimately connected to the forces of commerce and science at the dawn of the Enlightenment. By focusing on the language in which spontaneity was defended and on its psychological repercussions, Rituals of Spontaneity challenges previous understanding of secularization and demonstrates the deep, often troubling connections between religion and secularism in modernity.

Winner of the Book of the Year Award for the Conference on Christianity and Literature.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781602583429
Publisher: Baylor University Press
Publication date: 11/01/2010
Pages: 362
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.04(d)
Age Range: 18 Years

About the Author

Lori Branch (Ph. D. Indiana University) is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Iowa.

Table of Contents

List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction1 The Rejection of Liturgy, the Rise of Free Prayer, and Modern Religious Subjectivity2 "As Blood Is Forced out of Flesh": Spontaneity and the Wounds of Exchange in Grace Abounding and The Pilgrim's Progress3 "True Enthusiasm": Moral Sense Philosophy and Fissures of the Secular Self in Shaftesbury' Private WritingsCoda to Chapter 3: "Divide Youself, Be Two"-Images of the Modern Subject4 At the Sign of the Bible and Sun: John Newbery, The Vicar of Wakefield, and the Ghost of Christopher Smart5 Wordsworth's "Spontaneous Overflow" and the "High Service Within": From Lyrical Ballads to Ecclesiastical SonnetsConclusion: On the Religiousness of CriticismNotesWorks CitedIndex

What People are Saying About This

Branch offers an essential reconsideration of the importance of religious identity in England in the eighteenth century. Branch's study challenges our blind spots and raises timely questions about our implication, as late moderns, in habits of thought that limit our understanding of the period.

Thomas H. Luxon

Branch is an archaeologist intent on uncovering the history of the notion of spontaneity. From Bunyan's spirit-prompted prayers to Wordsworth's natural expression, this is the story of how a culture invented spontaneity and made its performance the chief measure of sincerity in matters religious, poetic, economic and political.

Deidre Lynch

This superbly researched and dazzlingly original book calls on us to re-examine a familiar feature of our literary histories and of the landscape of Western modernity more generally: namely, the manner in which modern religion and modern literary composition alike have come to center on a rejection of liturgy's ritual repetitions and a celebration of spontaneity and sudden inspiration. Branch models an innovative and powerful alliance between literary history and religious studies.

Misty G. Anderson

Branch offers an essential reconsideration of the importance of religious identity in England in the eighteenth century. Branch's study challenges our blind spots and raises timely questions about our implication, as late moderns, in habits of thought that limit our understanding of the period.

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