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lyrical poetry - OUDL Home

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TENNYSON,BROWNING, & SOME OTHERSantiquated superstition and spiritual tyranny." ButScott had influenced, if Newman be right, those whowere beginning to think otherwise. The frost ofProtestant prejudice was relaxing. The growth of"liberalism" was beginning to alarm those for whomthe authority of the Church had still a meaning, andwho, even before the new criticism of the Bible hadbegun to undermine the foundation of historicalProtestantism, felt that, without the sanction of suchauthority, their faith was in danger. Hurrell Froude'sRemains appeared in 1838 and the Tracts for the Timesbegan in 1841. As early as 1825 the magic of theMiddle Ages had made a Catholic of the young Cambridgeauthor of The Broadstone of Honour (1822, -23,-26) and Mores Catholici (1831-42). Now within theChurch of England itself began a Catholic awakeningwhich has produced many results besides those whichconcern my theme. For not all of those who feltthe charm of the Middle Ages, and studied them moredeeply than the earlier Romantics had done, weredrawn to Rome or even remained definitely Christian—Ruskin, the Carlyle of Past and Present, DanteGabriel Rossetti, William Morris; nor was Catholicismthe only aspect of mediaeval literature which attractedand delighted them. The chivalrous and the supernaturalin ballad and romance made appeal to this asto an earlier generation, to Rossetti and to Morris asto Coleridge and Scott; and Rossetti and Morris andSwinburne were to discover and revive that rival inthe Middle Ages of Christian devotion, the devotionto woman, the cult not of the Virgin but of Lilith,and to bring back into love-<strong>poetry</strong> an intensity ofdevotion, sensuous and spiritual, which it had notknown since Shakespeare and Ponne, if it was ever89

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