Forgiveness in Victorian Literature

Forgiveness in Victorian Literature PDF Author: Richard Hughes Gibson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1474222196
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
Forgiveness was a preoccupation of writers in the Victorian period, bridging literatures highbrow and low, sacred and secular. Yet if forgiveness represented a common value and language, literary scholarship has often ignored the diverse meanings and practices behind this apparently uncomplicated value in the Victorian period. Forgiveness in Victorian Literature examines how eminent writers such as Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, and Oscar Wilde wrestled with the religious and social meanings of forgiveness in an age of theological controversy and increasing pluralism in ethical matters. Richard Gibson discovers unorthodox uses of the language of forgiveness and delicate negotiations between rival ethical and religious frameworks, which complicated forgiveness's traditional powers to create or restore community and, within narratives, offered resolution and closure. Illuminated by contemporary philosophical and theological investigations of forgiveness, this study also suggests that Victorian literature offers new perspectives on the ongoing debate about the possibility and potency of forgiving.

Forgiveness in Victorian Literature

Forgiveness in Victorian Literature PDF Author: Richard Hughes Gibson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1474222196
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 192

Get Book

Book Description
Forgiveness was a preoccupation of writers in the Victorian period, bridging literatures highbrow and low, sacred and secular. Yet if forgiveness represented a common value and language, literary scholarship has often ignored the diverse meanings and practices behind this apparently uncomplicated value in the Victorian period. Forgiveness in Victorian Literature examines how eminent writers such as Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, and Oscar Wilde wrestled with the religious and social meanings of forgiveness in an age of theological controversy and increasing pluralism in ethical matters. Richard Gibson discovers unorthodox uses of the language of forgiveness and delicate negotiations between rival ethical and religious frameworks, which complicated forgiveness's traditional powers to create or restore community and, within narratives, offered resolution and closure. Illuminated by contemporary philosophical and theological investigations of forgiveness, this study also suggests that Victorian literature offers new perspectives on the ongoing debate about the possibility and potency of forgiving.

Victorian Literature and Culture

Victorian Literature and Culture PDF Author: Maureen Moran
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 9780826488831
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
An introduction to Victorian literature and its context from 1837-1900 includes historical, cultural, political, and intellectual background.

Victorian Parables

Victorian Parables PDF Author: Susan E. Colon
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1441148264
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 125

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Book Description
The familiar stories of the good Samaritan, the prodigal son, and Lazarus and the rich man were part of the cultural currency in the nineteenth century, and Victorian authors drew upon the figures and plots of biblical parables for a variety of authoritative, interpretive, and subversive effects. However, scholars of parables in literature have often overlooked the 19th-century novel, assuming that realism bears no relation to the subversive, iconoclastic genre of parable. In this book Susan E. Colòn shows that authors such as Charles Dickens, Margaret Oliphant, and Charlotte Yonge appreciated the power of parables to deliver an ethical charge that was as unexpected as it was disruptive to conventional moral ideas. Against the common assumption that the genres of realism and parable are polar opposites, this study explores how Victorian novels, despite their length, verisimilitude, and multi-plot complexity, can become parables in ways that imitate, interpret, and challenge their biblical sources.

Forgiveness

Forgiveness PDF Author: Matthew Ichihashi Potts
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300259859
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 283

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Book Description
A deeply researched and poignant reflection on the practice of forgiveness in an unforgiving world Matthew Ichihashi Potts explores the complex moral terrain of forgiveness, which he claims has too often served as a salve to the conscience of power rather than as an instrument of healing or justice. Though forgiveness is often linked with reconciliation or the abatement of anger, Potts resists these associations, asserting instead that forgiveness is simply the refusal of retaliatory violence through practices of penitence and grief. It is an act of mourning irrevocable wrong, of refusing the false promises of violent redemption, and of living in and with the losses we cannot recover. Drawing on novels by Kazuo Ishiguro, Marilynne Robinson, Louise Erdrich, and Toni Morrison, and on texts from the early Christian to the postmodern, Potts diagnoses the real dangers of forgiveness yet insists upon its enduring promise. Sensitive to the twenty-first-century realities of economic inequality, colonial devastation, and racial strife, and considering the role of forgiveness in the New Testament, the Christian tradition, philosophy, and contemporary literature, this book heralds the arrival of a new and creative theological voice.

Satan Absolved: A Victorian Mystery

Satan Absolved: A Victorian Mystery PDF Author: Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
Publisher: Good Press
ISBN:
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 46

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Book Description
"Satan Absolved: A Victorian Mystery" is a poem by Wilfred Scawen Blunt, who raises important questions about the moral standards of the society of his time. The poem presents the dialogue between God, Angels, and the Devil, where they discuss the deeds of men. The main theme of the poem is the hypocrisy and all-acquiring greed of the society of Blunt's time, which is capable of "the destruction of beauty in the name of science, the destruction of happiness in the name of progress, the destruction of reverence in the name of religion."

The Routledge Companion to Literature and Religion

The Routledge Companion to Literature and Religion PDF Author: Mark Knight
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135051100
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 454

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Book Description
This unique and comprehensive volume looks at the study of literature and religion from a contemporary critical perspective. Including discussion of global literature and world religions, this Companion looks at: Key moments in the story of religion and literary studies from Matthew Arnold through to the impact of 9/11 A variety of theoretical approaches to the study of religion and literature Different ways that religion and literature are connected from overtly religious writing, to subtle religious readings Analysis of key sacred texts and the way they have been studied, re-written, and questioned by literature Political implications of work on religion and literature Thoroughly introduced and contextualised, this volume is an engaging introduction to this huge and complex field.

Brought Home

Brought Home PDF Author: Hesba Stretton
Publisher: Good Press
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 87

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Book Description
"Brought Home" is a Victorian-era novel about the importance of moral virtues. Written by a then-popular writer, Hesba Stretton, whose books had, at the time, higher sales as Lewis Carrol's "Alice in Wonderland," the book was targeted at young girls. Thanks to the exciting and twisted plot and the author's talent, the book may be interesting to readers of any age.

Jesus as Teacher in the Gospel of Matthew

Jesus as Teacher in the Gospel of Matthew PDF Author: Charles Nathan Ridlehoover
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0567697851
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
Inspired by the work of Richard France and his highly influential Matthew: Evangelist and Teacher, Charles L. Quarles and Charles Nathan Ridlehoover have gathered together a collection of works that argue for a re-examination of the defining features of Jesus's role as a teacher in the Gospel of Matthew. This volume suggests that, while each of the Gospel writers display Jesus leading disciples along, speaking to crowds, and confronting Jewish authorities with effective and timely teachings, Matthew's portrayal of Jesus as a teacher contains distinctives that deserve further exploration. After examining Jesus's Old Testament and Second Temple influences and comparing his methods to the contemporary Greco-Roman tradition, the contributors explore Jesus's position as a teacher of faith and forgiveness and a trainer of scribes, and analyse his relationship with several different apostles. Including responsive essays, and concluding with a summary of Jesus and Matthew himself as evangelists and teachers, this journey through the aspects of Jesus's teaching ministry gives readers a more complete look at Jesus's vocation.

Dickens and Thackeray

Dickens and Thackeray PDF Author: John Robert Reed
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 536

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Book Description
Attitudes toward punishment and forgiveness in English society of the nineteenth century came, for the most part, out of Christianity. In actual experience the ideal was not often met, but in the literature of the time the model was important. For novelists attempting to tell exciting and dramatic stories, violent and criminal activities played an important role, and, according to convention, had to be corrected through poetic justice or human punishment. Both Dickens' and Thackeray's novels subscribed to the ideal, but dealt with the dilemma it presented in slightly different ways. At a time when a great deal of attention has been directed toward economic production and consumption as the bases for value, Reed's well-documented study reviving moral belief as a legitimate concern for the analysis of nineteenth-century English texts is particularly illuminating.

The Fallen Leaves

The Fallen Leaves PDF Author: Wilkie Collins
Publisher: Good Press
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 351

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Book Description
"The Fallen Leaves" by Wilkie Collins details Amelius Goldenheart, an American Christian Socialist's, sojourn to England after his untimely exile from the Utopian commune where he resided. Once in England, he finds he has tremendous difficulties adapting to his new way of life, especially when elements of his recent past life begin to resurface. In particular, the novel follows Goldenheart's relationship with four women who are his titular golden leaves.