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
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... faith seems to have been practically the invention of the Methodists, leaving Dean Swift certainly among the many unredeemed: “Scores of Swift's poems could hardly have been written by a man of religious nature, while none of them ...
... faith in any sort of Divine Power.”8 Proponents of this view of Augustan faith and morality proceed with blinders on. Such an approach will necessarily undermine any attempt to see hymns as integral to the age in which their authors ...
... faith. Both the antique language of Stemhold and Hopkins and the Old Testament, and therefore preChristian, content of the psalms are considered to have forced Watts and his fellow hymn writers to forge a practical, Christian ...
... faith, biblical sources, and a common purpose or manifested an actual influence. Watts evidently knew Jacobi and was familiar with his 1722 project, but Watts's hymns were the work of his youth, and any documented association with ...
... faith, a judgment betraying the familiar concern about the moral dangers of literary expression.4 Given the undeniable presence of boldness and fancy in the hymns, Watts was probably preempting criticism by readers hostile to hymns of ...
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 |