The decentering of moral authority in Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park and Emma and Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles

Brake, Hailey

Honours

2022

Wohlgemut, Esther

Bachelor of Arts

Faculty of Arts. Honours in English.

English

English

University of Prince Edward Island

Charlottetown, PE

The nineteenth century was a time of great instability in England’s religious cultural landscape, “inaugurated” by “intellectual, social, and political revolutions” (Altholz). For the first time since the Protestant Reformation, there was a major political event that destabilized the cultural landscape as a whole. The century opened on the heels of the French Revolution, and with it, the advent of Romantic ideals in Britain. Given Britain’s period of strict orthodoxy after the reinstatement of Show moreThe nineteenth century was a time of great instability in England’s religious cultural landscape, “inaugurated” by “intellectual, social, and political revolutions” (Altholz). For the first time since the Protestant Reformation, there was a major political event that destabilized the cultural landscape as a whole. The century opened on the heels of the French Revolution, and with it, the advent of Romantic ideals in Britain. Given Britain’s period of strict orthodoxy after the reinstatement of the Anglican Church as the state church in 1661, these Romantic ideals were especially revolutionary, prioritizing emotion over reason and “individual urgings of the spirit over orthodoxy” (White 10). Romanticism brought into prominence a competing system of beliefs that conflicted with orthodox religious teachings throughout the nineteenth century. As the Anglican priest Robert South noted during this period of time, the “enthusiasm” prompted by the emerging Romantic ideals was “that pestilent and vile thing, which, wheresoever it has had its full course, has thrown church and state into confusion” (White 10). Heightening the conflict between Romantic ideals and preeexisting institutions was the fact that eighteenth-century Anglicanism “considered the democratic impulse [of Romanticism] specifically un-Christian, because democracy disorders the ‘natural’ hierarchies set by God” (White 4; 4-5). This conflict between new ideals and preexisting structures created further instability within England’s religious cultural landscape that would continue through the 1800s. Show less

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