The Brontës and Religion

The first full-length study of the topic, drawing on nineteenth-century doctrinal, ethical and ecclesiastical debates.

Marianne Thormählen (Author)

9780521604574, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 20 May 2004

300 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.44 kg

'For those seeking a solid and scholarly guide to these writers in the religious context of their time this is an excellent book … it is the kind of writing which will endure and remain valuable for many years to come.' Theology

This is the first full-length study of religion in the fiction of the Brontës. Drawing on extensive knowledge of the Anglican church in the nineteenth century, Marianne Thormählen shows how the Brontës' familiarity with the contemporary debates on doctrinal, ethical and ecclesiastical issues informs their novels. Divided into four parts, the book examines denominations, doctrines, ethics and clerics in the work of the Brontës. The analyses of the novels clarify the constant interplay of human and Divine love in the development of the novels. While demonstrating that the Brontës' fiction usually reflects the basic tenets of Evangelical Anglicanism, the book emphasises the characteristic spiritual freedom and audacity of the Brontës. Lucid and vigorously written, it will open up new perspectives for Brontë specialists and enthusiasts alike on a fundamental aspect of the novels greatly neglected in recent decades.

Introduction
Part I. Denominations: 1. A Christian home in early nineteenth-century England: Evangelicalism, Dissent and the Brontë family
2. Charlotte Brontë and the church of Rome
3. An undenominational temper
Part II. Doctrines: 4. The Brontës in the theological landscape of their time
5. God and his creation
6. Faith and redemption
7. This life and next
Part III. Ethics: 8. Forgiveness and revenge
9. The enigma of St John Rivers
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers [DSK]