John Wesley, Practical Divinity and the Defence of Literature

List of contents

Methodism and the Defence of Literature: An Introduction;

1 Methodist Literary Culture: Literacy and Grace;

2 Wesley’s Christian Library: Practicality, Controversy and the Methodist Canon;

3 Wesley in the Literary Sphere: The Methodist Miscellany;

4 Wesleyan Poetics: Practical Divinity and the Function of Literature;

5 Negotiating Nonconformity: Practical Divinity and the Politics of Methodist Hymnody;

6 Experience, Experiment and Wesley’s Spiritual Autobiography;

Conclusion

About the author

Emma Salgård Cunha is Lecturer in English at Middlebury College’s Oxford Humanities Program and College Lecturer in Theology at Keble College, Oxford. Her research focuses on the relationship between religion and literature in the long eighteenth century.

Summary

This book takes the influential genre of practical divinity as a framework for understanding Wesley’s role as an author, editor and critic of popular religious writing. It asks why he advocated the literary arts as a valid aspect of his evangelical theology, and how his Christian poetics impacted upon the religious experience of his followe

Additional text

"his is an. academic book tor those who are interested in Joh:n Wesley's publication projects as they related to and were part of the literary print culture of the eighteenth century a time when a significant number of religious texts were produced. Wesley himself may have been responsible for as many as 3,500 items. Thls study, lhen, will be most useful for scholars interesting in the history of publishing in various religious movements such as Methodism, in the purposes and uses of literature and the readers of literature, and the reputation of John Wesley as a literary figure who instigated, as the fro.ntis note says "a s0phisticated programme of reading, writing, and publishing within Ws Methodist Societies' (iii)." - Rudolph P. Almasy, West Virginia University

Product details

• Authors: Emma Salgård Cunha, Emma Salgard Cunha, Emma Salgård Cunha
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd.
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 31.12.2019
• EAN: 9780367891589
• ISBN: 978-0-367-89158-9
• No. of pages: 200
• Series: Routledge Methodist Studies Series
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; RELIGION / General, English, HISTORY / General, RELIGION / Christian Theology / History, RELIGION / Christianity / Methodist, LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / 18th Century, LITERARY CRITICISM / Subjects & Themes / Religion, History of Religion, HISTORY / Europe / Great Britain / General, Church history, Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800, Literary studies: c 1600 to c 1800, C 1700 To C 1800, Methodist Churches, Protestantism & Protestant Churches