Duquesne University Duquesne Scholarship Collection Electronic Theses and Dissertations Spring 2011 The Pursuit of Divinity: Religious Faith and Fear in Late Victorian Women's Poetry Sharon Lee George Follow this and additional works at: https://dsc.duq.edu/etd Recommended Citation George, S. (2011). The urP suit of Divinity: Religious Faith and Fear in Late Victorian Women's Poetry (Doctoral dissertation, Duquesne University). Retrieved from https://dsc.duq.edu/etd/575 This Immediate Access is brought to you for free and open access by Duquesne Scholarship Collection. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Duquesne Scholarship Collection. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE PURSUIT OF DIVINITY: RELIGIOUS FAITH AND FEAR IN LATE VICTORIAN WOMEN‘S POETRY A Dissertation Submitted to the McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts Duquesne University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy By Sharon L. George May 2011 Copyright by Sharon L. George 2011 THE PURSUIT OF DIVINITY: RELIGIOUS FAITH AND FEAR IN LATE VICTORIAN WOMEN‘S POETRY By Sharon L. George Approved April 1, 2011 ______________________________ ______________________________ Daniel P. Watkins, Ph.D. Laura Engel, Ph.D. Professor of English Associate Professor of English (Dissertation Director) (Committee Member) ______________________________ Kathy Glass, Ph.D. Associate Professor of English (Committee Member) ______________________________ ______________________________ Cristopher M. Duncan, Ph.D. Magali Cornier Michael, Ph.D Dean, McAnulty College and Chair, Department of English Graduate School of Liberal Arts Professor of English iii ABSTRACT THE PURSUIT OF DIVINITY: RELIGIOUS FAITH AND FEAR IN LATE VICTORIAN WOMEN‘S POETRY By Sharon L. George May 2011 Dissertation supervised by Daniel P. Watkins, Ph.D. The relationship that the Victorians had with their God(s) was not an easy one. Despite the age‘s oft mocked attachment to religiosity, many individuals underwent profound re-evaluations of their faith, spurred by the combined forces of legislation that challenged the monolithic Anglican Church and the burgeoning fields of High Criticism, scientific inquiry, and technology. For some, religious introspection led to profound spirituality and a deeper understanding of their Christian faith. Others were drawn to alternative systems of faith characterized by a fluidness of belief. Most found the process of navigating their faith to be terrifying because religion was a high-stakes venture that not only affected their everyday lives but also the afterlife. Death and dying, as well as the trappings of funereal rites and burial practices, take on particular urgency for the Victorians because garnering a comfortable place in heaven was no longer a surety. In iv literature, gothic conventions give voice to the anxiety that, for the Victorians, characterized issues of faith. In Goblin Market and Other Poems, Christina Rossetti engages the female corpse tradition to illustrate the misplaced fear that many of her contemporaries associated with death and the afterlife. While arguing for a renewed faith in God, Rossetti enacts a radical revision of the female corpse tradition that gives agency to the traditionally silenced, objectified dead. Mary Elizabeth Coleridge employs negative capability in Fancy’s Following, where she fluidly combines religious and gothic discourse to demonstrate the necessity of tempering faith with a healthy sense of questioning and doubt, as humans are incapable of fully comprehending the divine. E. Nesbit hybridizes socialism and Christianity in Lays and Legends, where she suggests that all people are divine and, thus, should be granted social, political, and financial equality, which will extend the peace and plenty of the afterlife to the physical life. In The Bird-Bride: A Volume of Ballads and Sonnets, Graham R. Tomson posits that life has no divine purpose or reward; accordingly, all experiences, both positive and negative, must be embraced as ends in and of themselves. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Dan Watkins has consistently challenged and encouraged me to expand my thinking throughout this project and my graduate career. I strive to emulate his mentorship in my relationships with my own students. Laura Engel and Kathy Glass offered fresh eyes and crucial advice when I felt like I‘d been living with this project for far too long. I thank all of my committee members for their willingness to work with me long-distance. For their gracious and unceasing support, I thank Trish Ward, from the College of Charleston, and Randall McClure, from Georgia Southern University. As well, I‘d like to thank Kathy Béres Rogers for broadening my perspective in our many discussions of women‘s poetry, and Tim Ruppert for keeping me connected to Duquesne when it felt a lifetime away. Finally, I owe a profound debt to my parents, Arthur and Joann George, for keeping me fed physically and emotionally. Without their faith I could not have completed this project. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract………………………………………………………………………………….iv Acknowledgement………………………………………………………………………vi Introduction: Religious and Gothic Influences in Victorian Women‘s Poetry…………..x I. Victorian Faith……………………………………………………………………..xii II. Intersections of Religion and Literature…………………………………….........xv III. Intersections of Religion and the Gothic………………………………………..xix IV. Redefining the Divine…………………………………………………………xxiii Chapter One: Faith and Devotion: Death and the After-Life in Christina Rossetti‘s Goblin Market and Other Poems...................................................................................1 I. Established Faith: The Anglican Church During the Victorian Era………………...5 II. Contemporary Critical Reception: Rossetti and the Female Corpse Tradition….....8 III. Heavenly Reunion: ―Echo‖ and ―Advent‖………………………………………13 IV. Deferred Reward: The State Between Death and Paradise in ―Sound Sleep,‖ ―Rest,‖ ―Song [When I am dead, my dearest],‖ and ―Sweet Death‖…………….21 V. Moments of Doubt: ―At Home,‖ ―A Peal of Bells,‖ ―After Death,‖ and ―Up-Hill‖…………………………………………………………………….31 Chapter Two: Existing in Doubt: Negative Capability in Mary Elizabeth Coleridge‘s Fancy’s Following…………………………………………………………………...45 I. ―Outside the Gates of Fairyland‖: Mary Elizabeth Coleridge‘s Literary Inheritance………………………………………………………………47 II. Intellectual Roleplaying: Negative Capability and the State of Victorian Faith...52 III. Christianity in England: Dissent, Catholicism, and Anglicanism……………….57 vii IV. Blinded by the Light: Mistaken Belief in ―The Devil‘s Funeral,‖ ―Doubt,‖ and ―There Was No Place Found‖……………………………………………………60 V. Being in Uncertainties: The Benefits of Doubt in ―The Witch,‖ ―Master and Guest,‖ and ―The Other Side of a Mirror‖……………………………………….72 VI. Dust to Dust: Accepting Mortality in ―Self-Question‖……………………….....86 Chapter Three: Songs of Freedom: Intersections of Christianity and Socialism in E. Nesbit‘s Lays and Legends………………………………………………………..89 I. Victorian Socialism: The Fabian Society and Christian Socialists………………93 II. Fighting for Equality: Christian Ethics in ―A Last Appeal‖ and ―A Choice‖….100 III. Worshiping Liberty: Rewriting Divinity in ―New Year Song‖ and ―‗Until the Dawn‘‖…………………………………………………………112 IV. Family and Freedom: Parental Responsibility in ―The Dead to the Living,‖ ―Baby‘s Birthday,‖ and ―Children‘s Playgrounds in the City‖…………………119 Chapter Four: Living Without God: Redefining Redemption in Graham R. Tomson‘s The Bird-Bride: A Volume of Ballads and Sonnets………………………………...134 I. Challenging Morality and Faith: Characteristics of Fin-de-siècle Poetry……...139 II. Divine Neglect: Life With an Absent God in ―Le Mauvais Larron‖ and ―‗Eli, Eli, Lama Sabachthani?‘‖…………………………………………...……145 III. Coming to Terms With Existence: The Necessity of Strife in ―Evening,‖ ―On the Road,‖ and ―Hymn of Labour‖……………………………………...…157 IV. Accepting God‘s Decline: Death and Regeneration In ―The Smile of All- Wisdom‖ and ―The Quick and the Dead‖………………………………………166 viii Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...176 Notes……………………………………………………………………………………181 Works Cited…………………………………………………………………………….236 ix Introduction Religious and Gothic Influences in Victorian Women‘s Poetry Of particular concern for this project is the liminal space between faith and doubt and between gothic and spiritual, particularly in the poetry of late Victorian women. The authors I explore—Christina Rossetti, Mary Elizabeth Coleridge (―Anodos‖), Graham R. Tomson (Rosamund Marriott Watson), and E(dith) Nesbit—demonstrate various levels of faith, with Rossetti at the extreme of devotion and Tomson at the extreme of disbelief. Despite their differing levels of belief, all four authors attempt to discover methods of expressing and solidifying their spirituality. An essential component for all four women entails the nature of human existence and of the hereafter. For all four women, conceptions of the afterlife become an integral aspect of human life. These conceptions function as a goal for the faithful and as motivation for ―proper‖ behavior. That the tropes of the gothic would be used to explore conceptions of the afterlife is fitting not only because of the gothic‘s concern with death and hauntings but also because of the gothic‘s concern with the unknown. Faith by its very nature must always only remain conjecture. In their exploration of faith, many women relied on already established conventions that were