The Victorian Pro-Goddites
Sometimes we have to make educated guesses, but that's what we've been educated to do.
I'm trying to keep this page on "facts, sir," and will indicate with a question mark if I am guessing.
This will be very very sketchy at first but I'll work on it when I have time.
Coleridge: Father, John Coleridge, was a C of E pastor. Vastly
interested in philosophy, his intake of new ideas sometimes blew upon his
faith. In 1798 he was poised to accept a job as a Unitarian minister,
at which time area he denied the trinity of God as Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit--but he finally came back round to orthodox views. He finally
considered himself a lifelong Christian, and his self-penned epitaph extols
visitors to follow his example.
TSE: He was at first a non-believer. He became a Christian
in 1927 and thereafter was sincerely Christian, not merely in name alone.
His plays are all on religious themes, and many of his poems, too,
after this date. The Four Quartets, for example.
Graham Greene: He was a Roman Catholic. His The Heart of the Matter is specifically about Catholic concepts of faith and priorities.
Dickens
The Introduction to an anthology of Victorian Literature by C. C. Cunningham
(Sorry, I'm not sure about the exact title!) gives some more details, which
I should follow up later. No time now!
Anne Bronte and Christina Rosetti (the latter connected with
the PRB) were Anglo-Catholic believers, and very devout. CCC calls
Ms. Rosetti's "A Christmas Carol" "one of the very finest Christian poems
in the whole period." Later CCC mentions that Bronte and Elizabeth Barrett Browning went through "holy Calvinist suffering moods."
CCC tells us that Robert Browning was a "Luther-admiring Protestant poet"
Tennyson, Arthur Conan Doyle both tried to assert that the "righteous
male heroic self" was a continuing figure as the Victorian age wound its
way down to modernism, but CCC counters that actually that paragon was "tapering
off."
By the way, CCC tells us that Victoria was crowned on June 28th, 1838.
This might disagree with Norton's date of 1837, or perhaps she was
queen already at that time, but uncrowned, like Clifford Brown.
Gerard Manley Hopkins was also a Catholic, though sadly not on the list. He was pretty sad anyway.
Visit the "non-Christian" or "waffling" homepages, now, or go back to the Get Lit! main page.