Re: Spot on!

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Posted by Jane O on June 20, 1997 at 19:02:06:


In reply to Re: Lack of scriptural reference in JA? posted by The Mysterious H.C. on June 20, 1997 at 11:58:30

]

] Wasn't religion sorta in a lull at this point? I am under the impression people were beginning to tire of the evanganlical movement and were disenchanted with the current system of finding ministers.

] AnneM -- that describes more the Trollope-"Barchester Towers"-type goings on in the Victorian period, I think. In Jane Austen's period there was kind of a "lull" in the zeal of the Church of England, but the evangelical movement was just starting up...
]
So while the general impression of modern times is that in times past people were moral, religious creatures, in reality they were just like us! :-) So I don't think people (even ministers) went around quoting the Bible.

] Actually, quoting the Bible was fairly common in "serious" literature, but it might have been felt to be a little out of place in a mere novel -- remember, novels were then considered trash light reading -- kind of the Harlequin Romances of the time ;-)


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* * * * Mysterious H.C., my husband teaches biblical literature as well as Austen and I posed this question to him. He said the same things you were suggesting. Anne Bronte does use a fair amount of biblical allusion in her Tenant of W.H. (which I'm reading) but she came well into the Victorian period where there was a difference in sensibility generally and in acceptance of the novel form as well.



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