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ABSTRACT Macdonald's Antiphon: Literary Traditions and the “Lost

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ABSTRACT Macdonald's Antiphon: Literary Traditions and the “Lost ABSTRACT MacDonald’s Antiphon: Literary Traditions and the “Lost Church” of English Worship Bethany Joy Bear, Ph.D. Mentor: Stephen Prickett, Ph.D. This dissertation examines the ways in which Victorian novelist and fantasist George MacDonald re-imagines Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s ideas about the religious function of literary traditions. Each chapter of this project argues that Coleridge and MacDonald confront the problems of post-Kantian subjectivity with visions of literary tradition that, in turn, revitalize the idea of a universal Church in English life and letters. Chapter One begins with a study of Coleridge’s participation in the “reinvention of tradition” in the nineteenth century. Chapter Two argues that Coleridge’s Aids to Reflection (1825) is predicated upon the idea that literary recreations of the past can resolve many of the philosophical, historical, and moral challenges to the authority of the Bible. Thirty years after the publication of Aids to Reflection, MacDonald developed Coleridge’s ideas into a vision of literary traditions as “chapels” through which readers might enter the Church Invisible. In Phantastes (1858), MacDonald imagines reading as a form of baptism that can reconcile interpretive freedom and spiritual communion. Likewise, in England’s Antiphon (1868), MacDonald argues that England’s lyric tradition can restore unity among England’s divided Christians. Chapter Three considers why MacDonald writes fairy-tale “parables” in response to those who would reduce the Bible’s meaning either to the empiricism of textual criticism or to the “single plain sense” of plenary-verbal inspiration. Similarly, in Antiphon, MacDonald responds to Coleridge’s problematic theories of allegory with his own narrative of allegory’s importance in the English literary tradition. Chapter Four concludes this study by examining why both Coleridge and MacDonald believe the writers of the seventeenth century--an era of violent religious division in England--hold the key to nineteenth- century religious unity and to the revitalization of English literature. In St. George and St. Michael (1876), MacDonald modifies Coleridge’s elevation of natural symbols in order to demonstrate that the highest forms of poetry lead to the transformation of conscience and history. Throughout this study, it becomes clear that MacDonald offers a resounding and creative challenge to other nineteenth-century readings of Coleridge, particularly Matthew Arnold’s notions of literary culture. Arguably, it is MacDonald who comes nearest to fulfilling Coleridge’s own hopes for his philosophical labors, namely, providing a theory of literature that could sustain the Church in the face of division and doubt. MacDonald’s Antiphon: Literary Traditions and the “Lost Church” of English Worship by Bethany Joy Bear, B.A. A Dissertation Approved by the Department of English ___________________________________ Dianna M. Vitanza, Ph.D, Chairperson Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Baylor University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Approved by the Dissertation Committee ___________________________________ Stephen Prickett, Ph.D., Chairperson ___________________________________ Phillip J. Donnelly, Ph.D. ___________________________________ David Lyle Jeffrey, Ph.D. ___________________________________ Joshua S. King, Ph.D. ___________________________________ Dianna M. Vitanza, Ph.D. Accepted by the Graduate School May 2012 ___________________________________ J. Larry Lyon, Ph.D., Dean Page bearing signatures is kept on file in the Graduate School. Copyright © 2012 by Bethany Joy Bear All rights reserved TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Abbreviations vi Acknowledgements vii Chapter One: Introduction 1 The Lost Churches of English Worship 3 Critical Questions and Traditions 15 Literature Review 20 Chapter Summaries 23 Chapter Two: Shadow-Chasing and Ideal Objects: Coleridge, MacDonald, and the 28 Challenge of Subjectivity Rejoicing in Shadows Lost 28 The Beauties of Coleridge: Aids to Reflection and the English Church 34 MacDonald’s Phantastes: Literary Baptism and the Defeat of the Self 56 Secret Growth and Lyric Communion: Cultivating “Sympathy” in England’s 83 Antiphon Conclusion 99 Chapter Three:. Parables in Fairy Land and the Transformation of Allegory 101 Truth in Disguise? 101 Adela Cathcart and the Parables of Fairy Land 104 Phantom Proxies and Admirable Allegories: Coleridge and the Problems of 122 Representation Extremes Meet: MacDonald’s Parables of the Lost Church 137 The Transfiguration of Allegory in England’s Antiphon 142 v Coda: Bunyan and MacDonald 158 Conclusion 165 Chapter Four: “Wherefore should I love books?”: Seventeenth-Century Traditions 166 and the Reclamation of Conscience Physician-Poets and the Sickness of the Self 166 Disputing over the Yule-Log: St. George and St. Michael 171 Vermiculate Questions: Party Spirit and the Insufficiency of the Intellect 179 The Conscience of the Heart: Literary Traditions and the English Church 189 Love Alone Can Interpret: The Triumph of Conscience in St. George 195 Their Dull Sides Vanish in Its Piercing Shine: George Herbert and the 206 Limits of the Symbol A Kind of Stumbling: Henry Vaughan and the Future of Tradition 215 Conclusion 222 Chapter Five: Conclusion 225 Works Cited 232 vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS (Full bibliographic details for each text are available in the list of Works Cited, below. For the works of Coleridge, I have followed the conventions used by the editors of the Bollingen editions of Coleridge’s Collected Works. ) Works by Samuel Taylor Coleridge AR Aids to Reflection BL Biographia Literaria C&S On the Constitution of the Church and State CN The Notebooks of Samuel Taylor Coleridge Confessions Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit Essays Essays on His Times Friend The Friend Lects 1795 Lectures 1795: on Politics and Religion LS Lay Sermons PW Poetical Works (Variorum ed.) Works by George MacDonald Adela Adela Cathcart Antiphon England’s Antiphon Falconer Robert Falconer Orts A Dish of Orts St. George St. George and St. Michael Unspoken Unspoken Sermons vii Other Works FQ The Faerie Queene DNB The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography OED The Oxford English Dictionary viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS A scholar must always be careful to cite her sources, and while I am confident that my bibliography is thorough, I am less certain that I can acknowledge all of the men and women who provided the intellectual, administrative, emotional, and spiritual support that made this dissertation possible. I owe my thanks, first of all, to my mentor, Dr. Stephen Prickett, for encouraging me to take the kinds of risks that produce good scholarship, and for agreeing to work with me with an ocean intervening. I am also grateful to the Baylor University Graduate School and Department of English, particularly Dean Larry Lyon, Dr. James Barcus, and Dr. Dianna Vitanza, for allowing an outside faculty member to direct my dissertation. To my dissertation committee, including Dr. Vitanza, Dr. David Lyle Jeffrey, Dr. Phillip Donnelly, and Dr. Joshua King, I give my most sincere thanks. Their guidance, encouragement, and time have been irreplaceable. My gratitude is also due to all of the scholars who have served as my teachers and advisers during my doctoral studies. The faculty at Baylor have taught me to practice wise, rigorous, and joyful scholarship, while also preparing me to share what I learn with rising generations of students. In addition to my mentors and teachers, many colleagues and friends have encouraged and supported me during this process. I treasure the months I spent deciphering Coleridge with Mary Frank, the days Adrienne Akins studied alongside me, as well as the semester Mandy Nydegger, Daniel Train, and I met each week to write together. In the same way, without my “dissertation club,” including Steven Petersheim and Jeffrey Bilbro, I would not have been able to complete this project with so much joy. ix Their questions, criticisms, and support have proven invaluable at every stage of this process. I am also thankful for all those who know nothing about Samuel Taylor Coleridge or George MacDonald, but who love me and have walked alongside me over the last year. For Grant and Jennifer Kemper, who told me to stop writing and to come to supper; for Eric McAnly, who made sure that I never ran out of tea; and for all the members of Calvary Baptist Church of Waco, Texas, who have proven that the Church is not so lost as some might think. Finally, I must thank my parents, who taught me to love good stories, and my God, who taught me to believe those stories could come true. x CHAPTER ONE Introduction “The status and purpose of the study of literature have never been more uncertain” (State 6). With this bleak assertion, the National Humanities Center (NHC) opened its 2010 conference on The State and Stakes of Literary Study. However, the uncertainty expressed by the NHC may be salutary. The conference organizers observe that changes in the academy “have shaken the traditional rationales for literary study without leaving anything definite in their place” (6), and the same language might be used to describe the status of religion in nineteenth-century England. This resonance is more than coincidental. Many of the “traditional rationales” for literary study developed in response to the increasingly uncertain status of religion in the academy and in society. For disciples of Matthew Arnold, the status and purpose of literary study once depended, at least in part,
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