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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... relationship of hymns to other literature, and similar critical questions are legitimate and their answers useful. However profound the religious experience conveyed by the hymn, however inspired the form by its spiritual content, the ...
... relationship between metrical psalms and hymns and help us understand the controversy surrounding the revolutionary departure from English tradition. The tension reflected in both the language and content of Watts's hymns, between, on ...
... relationship to romantic poetry. Metrical Psalms The evolution of the English hymn reflects the complicated history of the English Reformation. While the initial reform of the English church was essentially Lutheran, the exile of ...
... relationship to God. The poetry must have been even more accessible to Isaac Watts's contemporaries, so intimately familiar with the Bible, than it is to “moderns”; and the Christian element was present in the psalms, both by virtue of ...
... relationship between God and the singer is quite different here from the relationship posited in the Gerhardt hymn. The horrible apparition is at odds with its gentle, loving intention. A less successful translation of another Moravian ...
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 |