The Brontës and religion

Author(s)

Bibliographic Information

The Brontës and religion

Marianne Thormählen

Cambridge University Press, 1999

  • : hbk

Available at  / 32 libraries

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Note

Includes bibliographical references and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

This is the first full-length study of religion in the fiction of the Brontes. Drawing on extensive knowledge of the Anglican church in the nineteenth century, Marianne Thormahlen shows how the Brontes' 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 Brontes. The analyses of the novels clarify the constant interplay of human and Divine love in the development of the novels. While demonstrating that the Brontes' fiction usually reflects the basic tenets of Evangelical Anglicanism, the book emphasises the characteristic spiritual freedom and audacity of the Brontes. Lucid and vigorously written, it will open up new perspectives for Bronte specialists and enthusiasts alike on a fundamental aspect of the novels greatly neglected in recent decades.

Table of Contents

  • Introduction
  • Part I. Denominations: 1. A Christian home in early nineteenth-century England: Evangelicalism, Dissent and the Bronte family
  • 2. Charlotte Bronte and the church of Rome
  • 3. An undenominational temper
  • Part II. Doctrines: 4. The Brontes 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.

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