Some error occured while loading the Quick View. Please close the Quick View and try reloading the page.
The Catholic Revival in English Literature, 1845-1961 presents a thorough discussion of the six principal writers of the Catholic revival in English literature—Newman, Hopkins, Belloc, Chesterton, Greene, and Waugh. Beginning with Newman’s conversion in 1845 and ending with Waugh’s completion of the triology The Sword of Honor in 1961, this book explores how Catholicism shaped the work of these six prominent writers. John Henry Newman claimed in The Idea of a University that post-Reformation English literature was overwhelmingly Protestant and that there was no prospect of a Catholic body of literature. Describing this claim as “happily lacking in prescience,” Ian Ker persuasively argues that Newman, Hopkins, Belloc, Chesterton, Greene, and Waugh succeeded in producing a substantial body of literature written by Catholics who wrote as Catholics. These revivalists were not so much influenced by traditional themes of guilt, sin, and ceremony, as they were attracted to unexpected facets of Catholicism. The idea of a Catholic priest as a craftsman is a recurring motif, as is the celebration of the ordinariness and objectivity of Catholicism. Ker’s compelling and intelligent reading of these six major writers will appeal to anyone with an interest in nineteenth- and twentieth-century English literature, or the relation between literature and theology.
“In England, the period between John Henry Newman’s conversion in 1845 and the beginning of Vatican II in 1962 was a golden age for Catholic writing. A good introduction to the central figures in this story is provided by Ian Ker in The Catholic Revival in English Literature, 1845-1961: Newman, Hopkins, Belloc, Chesterton, Greene, Waugh. ...[E]ven readers who are already very familiar with the work of the six writers will find this book highly rewarding.” —National Review
Ian Ker is Catholic Chaplain at Oxford University and a Senior Research Fellow at Blackfriars Hall. He is editor of John Henry Newman: The Idea of a University; John Henry Newman: An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent; coeditor of The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman, volumes 1-4; and author of John Henry Newman: A Biography.