Memories,Dreams and Selections

Abstract

This essay addresses a shift in the way religion was approached in the literature of the Romantic period, when religion itself was changing its shape and meaning in quite radical ways. The religious revival of the period was so protean in its forms that it is almost impossible to list all its characteristics. But for many Romantics, this was no revival of 17th-century piety, even though it claimed similar biblical inspiration. This revival was as much aesthetic as devotional. The most potent literary model was no longer classical but biblical. In Blake’s words the Bible was now “The Great Code of Art.” Behind this, however, was a second even more significant factor: a new inwardness. Religious observance was not enough. Nor, even, was evangelical conviction of sin and forgiveness. The religion of the heart was not just one of inspiration but of creativity.