Page 166 - DENG402_HISTORY_OF_ENGLISH_LITERATURE

Unit 21: The Victorian Age (Oxford Movement)

of examining the Church in the light of reason. The Oxford men put special emphasis on faith as Notes
something superrational. “The main-spring of the Oxford Movement,” observes Hugh Walker
“was the dread of rationalism.” According to the same critic, the “problem” for Newman (the chief
force of the Movement) “was how to check the growth of rationalism as he saw it in England.”

Task Write a short note on oxford movement.

21.1 Anti-Rationalism

This aggressive anti-rationalism manifested itself in the Oxford men’s affirmation of the miracles
associated with the history of the ancient church and numerous saints. The people, influenced by
science in their age, were already finding it too hard to give credence to the numerous Scriptural
miracles, and the Oxford men were adding new ones which had never been seriously believed
except perhaps by the very orthodox Roman Catholics. This flagrant anti-rationalism, certainly
out of tune with the times, naturally alienated many otherwise sympathetic people.

Romantic
This anti-rationalism was somewhat “romantic.” Indeed between the Romantic Movement and
the Oxford movement there is something curiously common. The “romantic” interest in the
middle Ages for their mystery and splendour is one of these common factors. As Moody and
Lovett put it, the Oxford movement stood for “the restoration of the poetry, the mystic ritual and
service which had characterised the Catholic Church in the middle Ages.” It was this medievalism
which was probably responsible for the ultimate entry of Newman into the Roman Catholic fold.
The romantic tendency of the protagonists of the Oxford movement is also apparent in a different
way-their poetry.

Notes As Eugene R. Fair-weather points out, “their poetic sensibility-which cannot be
ignored, in view of the fact that Keble, Newman and Williams were all fluent, if
‘minor’, poets was ‘romantic’ in tone.”

21.2 Anti-Erastianism
But the fundamental factor which sparked off the Movement and which was taken congnizance of
and condemned by almost all the ‘brethren” was the increasing interference of secular authority in
the affairs of the Church. All of them were at daggers drawn with Erastianism (the control of the
Church by the State). The chief aim of the Oxford movement, in the words of one of its protagonists,
was to convince the people that “the Church was more than a merely human institution; that it had
privileges, sacraments, a ministry, ordained by Christ.” Moody and Lovett observe in this
connexion: “Newman and his friends wished also to defend the Church, in view of its divine
character, against the interference of the state, which was disposed to reform it along with Parliament
and other institutions, curtailing its powers and revenues.” Thus the Oxford movement stood for
Anti-Erastianism.

21.3 The History of the Movement

These were the most important points which shaped the Oxford movement. But the “brethren”
were by no means a united lot. A brief survey of the history of this Movement will show this.
Newman was the soul of the Movement. But, generally, the name of John Keble is mentioned as
the man who started the Movement. In July 1833 Keble preached a sermon at Oxford before the
judges of assize, on national apostasy and against the Erastian and Latitudinarian tendencies of the

LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY 159