The portrayal of the Anglican clergyman in some nineteenth-century fiction

Abstract

What were Anglican Clergymen, in the fiction of the nineteenth century, like? How were their social and intellectual attitudes, and religious beliefs, characterized and delineated? Why do novelists portray the clergy as they do? How accurate is their portrayal, in the light of contemporary ecclesiastical history? This study answers these questions by reference to the novels, both well-known and little read, and to the lives and opinions of the actual clergy, of the period. There is a general survey of the fictional clergy throughout the century which relates them to particular religious movements, such as the Evangelical and Tractarian movements, and to changing intellectual and theological opinion. The principal aim of the study, however, is literary. It concentrates on the work of four major authors: Jane Austen, Thomas Love Peacock, Anthony Trollope and George Eliot. Their novels are examined in detail; the place and treatment of their clerical characters analysed and discussed. This close study of particular novels, it is hoped, will deepen the general literary appreciation of the novels and writers and stimulate interest in the neglected clerical characters of fiction.