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‘What has Christ to do with Apollo?’: evangelicalism and the novel, 1800–30

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Doreen M. Rosman
Doreen M. Rosman*
Affiliation:
University of Kent at Canterbury
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Extract

In December 1800 the Evangelical Magazine published a ‘Spiritual barometer; or, a scale of the progress of sin and of grace’. Towards the positive pole it was calibrated with the attributes and practices thought to characterise those destined for ‘glory’ and ‘dismission from the body’; at the other extreme, graded in degrees of depravity, were the activities of those assumed to be heading heedlessly to ‘death’ and ‘perdition’. Among the most heinous of sins, even more damning than attendance at the theatre, was ‘love of novels’.

Novel-reading was condemned as a hallmark of worldliness. Evangelicals believed that church and world were diametrically opposed and that the safest route to sanctity lay in separation from the world, its contaminating company and perverting practices: ‘If we are not to think, to feel, to act, and to perish with the world, let a deep and wide interval yet exist between the habits of pleasure of the two parties.’ Ignorance of evil was deemed bliss: to read novels was to become familiar with just such beliefs and behaviour as were avoided in everyday life. Moreover, it was argued that novelists rarely upheld Christian values: they depicted wickedness sympathetically and effectively denied that sin, an affront to God, had dire consequences. They therefore misled their readers in matters of ultimate importance. Evangelicals maintained that the worthiness of characters should be evaluated according to criteria which God might be assumed to adopt. Failure to reflect a biblical outlook on life was a culpable misrepresentation of reality.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 14: Renaissance and Renewal in Christian History , 1977 , pp. 301 - 311
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1977

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References

1 E[vangelical] M[agazine], 1 scries, 8 (London 1800) p 526.

2 C[hristian] O[bserver], 16 (London 1817) p 301.

3 Roberts, W., Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Mrs Hannah More, 4 vols (London 1834) 4 pp 204-5Google Scholar. For detailed evangelical criticism of novel-reading see, for example, More, H., Moral Sketches (London 1819) pp 238-49Google Scholar; CO 14 (1815) pp 512-17; 16 (1817) pp 298-301, 371-5, 425-9; 22 (1822) pp 157-72, 237-50; E[clectic] R[eview], 2 series, 7 (London 1817) pp 309-36; M[ethodist] M[agazine], 2 series, 16 (London 1819) pp 606-9.

4 See for example Richards, I., Novel and Romance 1700-1800 A Documentary Record (London 1970) pp 1–24 Google Scholar; Taylor, J.T., Early Opposition to the English Novel; the popular reaction from 1760-1830 (New York 1943)Google Scholar; Gallaway, W.F., Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, 55 (Menasha, Wisconsin 1940) pp 1041-59Google Scholar.

5 Quarterley Review, 24 (London 1821) pp 352-7.

6 MM, 3 series, 12 (1833) pp 17-18.

7 The Record, 27 September 1832, 4 October 1832.

8 CO, 32 (1832) p 814; 33 (1833) pp 478-82.

9 Ibid 16 (1817) p 64; 22 (1822) p 158; 32 (1832) p 819.

10 Ibid 15 (1816) pp 784-87; compare 16 (1817) pp 230-1.

11 Ibid 22 (1822) pp 157-72, 237-50.

12 See for example CO, 9 (1810) pp 366-89; 11 (1812) pp 29-33; 14 (1815) pp 750-60.

13 ER, 1 series, 1 (1805) prospectus p 2.

14 Ibid 2 series, 15 (1821) p 280; 13 (1820) p 526.

15 Ibid 1 series, 2 (1806) p 140; 2 series, 12 (1819) pp 429-30.

16 Ibid 2 series, 14 (1820) p 268.

17 Ibid 12 (1819) p 423.

18 Ibid 18 (1822) p 163.

19 Ibid 3 series, 9 (1833) p 41.

20 [, R. I. and Wilberforce, S.], [The Life of William Wilberforce], 5 vols (London 1838) 5 pp 268-70Google Scholar.

21 Ibid p 133.

22 Luke 10: 42, a favourite evangelical text.

23 Wilberforce, 5 p 254.

24 EM, 1 series, 13 (1805) p 515.

25 ER, 1 series, 5 (1809) pp 972-3.

26 CO, 6 (1807) pp 522-26.

27 EM, 1 series, 14 (1806) pp 514-15.

28 B[aptist] M[agazine], 15 (London 1823) p 111.

29 ER, 2 series, 9 (1818) pp 61-2.

30 CO, 11 (1812) pp 713-14.

31 Ibid 30(1830) p 432.

32 Ibid 8 (1809) pp 109, 111; 23 (1823) p 648.

33 EM, 1 series, 13 (1805) p 270.

34 Ibid 26 (1818) p 477.

35 BM, 17 (1825) p 124.

36 ER, 2 series, 13 (1820) pp 276-7, 349.

37 CO, 25 (1825) p 162.

38 BM, 15 (1823) p 385; see also ER, 2 series, 7 (1817) p 313.

39 EM, 2 series, 5 (1827) p 342.

40 CO, 30 (1830) p 432.

41 ER, 1 series, 2 (1806) p 1030.

42 EM, 1 series, 26 (1818) p 208-9.

43 MM, 3 series, 3 (1824) p 693.

44 ER, 1 series, 8 (1812) p 924.

45 See for example ER, 3 series, 3 (1830) p 565.

46 BM, 17 (1825) p 173.

47 ER, 2 series, 23 (1825) p 462.

48 ER, 3 series, 7 (1832) p 346.

49 See for example EM, 2 series, 6 (1828) pp iii-iv.

50 CO, 15 (1816) pp 784-5.