Page 169 - DENG402_HISTORY_OF_ENGLISH_LITERATURE

History of English Literature

Notes

Did u know? Edward Bouverie Pusey style is, to quote Hugh Walker, “crude, ungainly and
confused.”

Ward

William George Ward (1812-1882) was an extremely talented man who followed Newman’s lead
in conversion to Roman Catholicism. We have already referred to The Idea of a Christian Church
(1844) which is his best known work. His Essays on the Philosophy of Theism (collected in 1884)
were written to controvert the views of Mill.

Notes William George Ward style is inelegant and cumbrous, but his ideas stirred his times.

Church
Richard William Church (1815-1890) is, after Newman, the best of those connected with the Oxford
movement in the literary quality of their work. His clear and vigorous style, his sympathy and
eclecticism are apparent in his monographs on writers as diverse in their nature and art as Dante,
Spenser, and Bacon. Church also wrote a quite objective history of the Oxford movement, published
posthumously in 1891. With a rare degree of self-effacement, he refrains from mentioning his own
name in this history, even though he had played an important role in the Movement.

Conclusion

What tangible effect did the Movement produce? To quote Eugene R. Fainveather, “the Oxford
Movement, for all its profound conservatism, seriously altered the accepted patterns of Anglican
thought and practice.” For one thing, it directed the attention of the people to “personal holiness,”
and was responsible for reviving or confirming the practices of serious prayers, formal piety, and
fasting. It re-orientated the common views about apostolic authority, and, with some success,
discovered a link between the Church of England and the Pre-Reformation-Church (of Rome). It
made the Church of England conscious of the onslaught of Liberalism and Erastianism. Thus the
Oxford movement was more than a passing ripple on the surface of “the sea of faith.”

Self Assessment

Multiple Choice Questions:
1. …….. was professor of poetry at oxford, and an Anglican preacher.
(a) John Henry Newman (b) John Keble
(c) Richard Hurrell Froude (d) Edward Bouverie Pusey
2. ……… was the spirit behind the movement.
(a) John Henry Newman (b) William George Ward
(c) Richard William Church (d) Edward Bouverie Pusey
3. ……. was a link between Keble and Newman.
(a) Edward Bouverie Pusey (b) Richard William Church
(c) Richard Hurrell Froude (d) William George Ward
4. …….. was a man of very wide learning.
(a) Richard Hurrell Froude (b) William George Ward
(c) John Keble (d) Edward Bouverie Pusey

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