Methodism And Literature

In the eighteenth century, British Methodism was an object of both derision and desire. Many popular eighteenth-century works ridiculed Methodists, yet often the very same plays, novels, and prints that cast Methodists as primitive, irrational, or deluded also betrayed a thinly cloaked fascination with the experiences of divine presence attributed to the new evangelical movement. Misty G. Anderson argues that writers, actors, and artists used Methodism as a concept to interrogate the boundaries of the self and the fluid relationships between religion and literature, between reason and enthusiasm, and between theater and belief. Imagining Methodism situates works by Henry Fielding, John Cleland, Samuel Foote, William Hogarth, Horace Walpole, Tobias Smollett, and others alongside the contributions of John Wesley, Charles Wesley, and George Whitefield in order to understand how Methodism's brand of "experimental religion" was both born of the modern world and perceived as a threat to it. Anderson's analysis of reactions to Methodism exposes a complicated interlocking picture of the religious and the secular, terms less transparent than they seem in current critical usage. Her argument is not about the lives of eighteenth-century Methodists; rather, it is about Methodism as it was imagined in the work of eighteenth-century British writers and artists, where it served as a sign of sexual, cognitive, and social danger. By situating satiric images of Methodists in their popular contexts, she recaptures a vigorous cultural debate over the domains of religion and literature in the modern British imagination. Rich in cultural and literary analysis, Anderson's argument will be of interest to students and scholars of the eighteenth century, religious studies, theater, and the history of gender.

When American Methodist preachers first arrived in Upper Canada in the 1790s, they brought with them more than an alluring religious faith. They also brought saddlebags stuffed with books published by the New York Methodist Book Concern – North America’s first denominational publisher – to sell along their preaching circuits. Pulpit, Press, and Politics traces the expansion of this remarkable transnational market from its earliest days to the mid-nineteenth century, a period of intense religious struggle in Upper Canada marked by fiery revivals, political betrayals, and bitter church schisms. The Methodist Book Concern occupied a central place in all this conflict as it powerfully shaped and subverted the religious and political identities of Canadian Methodists, particularly in the wake of the American Revolution. The Concern bankrolled the bulk of Canadian Methodist preaching and missionary activities, enabled and constrained evangelistic efforts among the colony’s Native groups, and clouded Methodist dealings with the British Wesleyans and other religious competitors north of the border. Even more importantly, as Methodists went on to assume a preeminent place in Upper Canada’s religious, cultural, and educational life, their ongoing reliance on the Methodist Book Concern played a crucial role in opening the way for the lasting acceptance and widespread use of American books and periodicals across the region.

Hempton explores the rise of Methodism from its unpromising origins as a religious society within the Church of England in the 1730s to a major international religious movement by the 1880s.

Exploring the intense relationship between Romantic literature and Methodism, Helen Boyles argues that writers from both movements display an ambivalent attitude towards the expression of deep emotional and spiritual experience. Boyles takes up the disparaging characterization of William Wordsworth and other Romantic poets as 'Methodistical,' showing how this criticism was rooted in a suspicion of the 'enthusiasm' with which the Methodist movement was negatively identified. Historically, enthusiasm has generated hostility and embarrassment, a legacy that Boyles suggests provoked concerted efforts by Romantic poets such as Wordsworth and the Methodist leaders John and Charles Wesley to cleanse it of its derogatory associations. While they distanced themselves from enthusiasm's dangerous and hysterical manifestations, writers and religious leaders also identified with the precepts and inspiration of a language and religion of the heart. Boyles's analysis encompasses a range of literary genres from the Methodist sermon and hymn, to literary biography, critical review, lyric and epic poem. Balancing analysis of creative content with a consideration of its critical reception, she offers readers a detailed analysis of Wordsworth's relationship to popular evangelism within a analytical framework that incorporates Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Southey, and William Hazlitt.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1883.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1883.

“As to the main subject, Methodism is still a rich quarry. Time, far from obliterating its memory, serves only to emphasize more clearly neglected aspects and accentuate main features. No evangel can live if cut from its roots. It is wise, therefore, to recall that early Methodist faith and practice were rooted and grounded in a rich cultural and devotional tradition.” — From the preface