English Congregational Hymns in the Eighteenth CenturyHistorians of the English congregational hymn, focusing on its literary or theological aspects, have usually found the genre out of step with the rationalist era that produced it. This book takes a more balanced approach to the work of four writers and concludes that only eighteenth-century Britain, with its understanding of public verse, common truth, and the utility of poetry, could have invented the English hymn as we know it. The early hymns sought to inspire, teach, stir, and entertain congregations. The essential purpose shifted slightly in line with each poet's setting and in accord with the poetic thought of his day. For Isaac Watts's Independents, powerful traditional imagery was appropriate. Charles Wesley's enthusiasm proceeded from and served the spirit of the revival. John Newton's prophetic vision particularly suited the impoverished community at Olney. William Cowper's masterful handling of formal conventions and his idiosyncratic personal hymns reflect his poetic, rather than clerical, vocation. Despite such temporal variations, the great poetry by each man displays themes of general Christian relevance, suggesting common experience, showing normative features of the genre, and bearing a complex and intriguing relationship to secular literature. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 33
... England and that Isaac Watts, the clergyman who wrote the first hymns that we may regard as belonging to the continuous English tradition, was esteemed as an educator. Accordingly, many hymns are the artful expressions of religious ...
... England reservations about admitting hymns to the service understandable. The hymns may be usefully viewed, from a third perspective, as religious entertainment, in which the dramatic potential of biblical material is enthusiastically ...
... traditional tunes only with the greatest difficulty. Routley describes the new music written in England after the Restoration and the collections of new psalm tunes that appeared at the beginning of the eighteenth century,
... England, whose work on hymns shows the most “literary” reading of the texts, declares with little explanation that Blake cannot stand comparison with Wesley as a religious poet.6 This critical failure is especially obvious to one ...
... England. In their haste to approve of hymns as literature, the hymnologists have rushed to label them preromantic, an act that has created more problems by far than it has solved if our effort is to determine what hymns are and how they ...
Contents
Self Sense the Revival | |
John Newton Olney Prophet | |
Exemplary Tradition the Loss of Control | |
Conclusion | |
Notes | |
Other editions - View all
English Congregational Hymns in the Eighteenth Century Madeleine Forell Marshall,Janet Todd Limited preview - 1982 |
English Congregational Hymns in the Eighteenth Century Madeleine Forrell Marshall,Janet M. Todd No preview available - 2014 |