"Kubla Khan" and the fall of Jerusalem : the mythological school in biblical criticism and secular literature, 1770-1880
Dr Schaffer outlines the development of the mythological school of European Biblical criticism, especially its German origins and its reception in England, and studies the influence of this movement in the work of specific writers: Coleridge Hölderlin, Browning, and George Eliot. The 'higher criticism' treated sacred scripture as literature and as history, as the product of its time, and the highest expression of a developing group consciousness; it challenged current views on the authorship and dating of the Pentateuch and the Gospels, on inspiration, prophecy, and canonicity, and formulated a new apologetics closely linked with the growth of Romantic aesthetics. The importance of this study is that it shows that readings of specific literary texts can intersect with general movements of thought and action through the scrutiny of a clearly defined intellectual discipline, here the higher criticism, which developed as a particular expression of the larger trends in the history of the period. Dr Shaffer throws light on individual works of literature, the formation between England and Germany, and the bases of European Romanticism
Print Book, English, 1975
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [England], 1975
Criticism, interpretation, etc
x, 361 pages ; 24 cm
9780521204781, 9780521298070, 052120478X, 0521298075
1741590
The fall of Jerusalem: Coleridges's unwritten epic
The visionary character: Revelation and the lyrical ballad
The oriental idyll
Holderlin's 'Patmos' ode and 'Kubla Khan': mythological doubling
Browning's St. John: the casuistry of the higher criticism
Daniel Deronda and the conventions of fiction
Appendix A: Eichhorn's outline of the poetic action of the Book of Revelation
Appendix B: A translation of Hölderlin's 'Patmos'
'Patmos' [original]
Includes the text in English and German of F. Hölderlin's Patmos
Includes sections on German literature