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Literature: Apocalyptic’s return

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In Natural Supernaturalism: Tradition and Revolution in Romantic Literature, M. H. Abrams notes the influence of the Bible on Romanticism: “A conspicuous Romantic tendency, after the rationalism and decorum of the Enlightenment, was a reversion to the stark drama and suprarational mysteries of the Christian story and doctrines and to the violent conflicts and abrupt reversals of the Christian inner life, turning on the extremes of destruction and creation, hell and heaven, exile and reunion, death and rebirth, dejection and joy, paradise lost and paradise regained.”

It was, however, a post-Enlightenment return to the Bible: “they undertook to save the overview of human history and destiny, the experiential paradigms, and the cardinal values of their religious heritage, by reconstituting them in a way that would make them intellectually acceptable, as well as emotionally pertinent, for the time being.”

In particular, it was an effort to revive ancient connections between poetry, priesthood and prophecy. As Wordsworth said at the outset of the Prelude, addressing Coleridge:

“Thus far, O Friend! did I, not used to make

A present joy the matter of a song,

Pour forth that day my soul in measured strains

That would not be forgotten, and are here

Recorded: to the open fields I told

A prophecy: poetic numbers came

Spontaneously to clothe in priestly robe

A renovated spirit singled out,

Such hope was mine, for holy services.

My own voice cheered me, and, far more, the mind’s

Internal echo of the imperfect sound;

To both I listened, drawing from them both

A cheerful confidence in things to come.”

Wordsworth returns to a similar theme at the end of the poem:

“Oh! yet a few short years of useful life,

And all will be complete, thy race be run,

Thy monument of glory will be raised;

Then, though (too weak to tread the ways of truth)

This age fall back to old idolatry,

Though men return to servitude as fast

As the tide ebbs, to ignominy and shame,

By nations, sink together, we shall still

Find solace–knowing what we have learnt to know,

Rich in true happiness if allowed to be

Faithful alike in forwarding a day

Of firmer trust, joint labourers in the work

(Should Providence such grace to us vouchsafe)

Of their deliverance, surely yet to come.

Prophets of Nature, we to them will speak

A lasting inspiration, sanctified

By reason, blest by faith: what we have loved,

Others will love, and we will teach them how;

Instruct them how the mind of man becomes

A thousand times more beautiful than the earth

On which he dwells, above this frame of things

(Which, ‘mid all revolution in the hopes

And fears of men, doth still remain unchanged)

In beauty exalted, as it is itself

Of quality and fabric more divine.”

posted by Peter J. Leithart on Friday, March 19, 2010 at 8:40 am

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Literature: Apocalyptic’s return

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