Literature, Religion, and the Evolution of Culture, 16601780 chronicles changes in contentious politics and religion and their varied representations in British letters from the mid-seventeenth to the late eighteenth century. An uncertain trend toward tolerance and away from painful discord significantly influenced authors who reflected on and enhanced germane aspects of British literary and intellectual life. The movement was stymied during the painful Gordon Riots in June 1780, from which Britain needed to repair itself.Howard D. Weinbrot's broad-ranging interdisciplinary study considers sermons, satire, political and religious polemic, Anglo-French relations, biblical and theological commentary, Methodism, legal history, and the novel. Literature, Religion, and the Evolution of Culture, 16601780 analyzes the texts and contexts of several major and minor authors, including Daniel Defoe, Charles Dickens, Olaudah Equiano, Maria De Fleury, Lord George Gordon, Nathaniel Lancaster, Henry Sacheverell, Tobias Smollett, and Edward Synge.
Acknowledgments Introduction: The Groundwork of Change Eighteenth-Century Evolutionary Theory Practical Awareness The Chapters and a Definition A Note on Notes Part I: Threats to the Species: Madness, Discontent, and the Danger of Dissolution 1. Causation and Contexts of Hatred: Savage Beasts Mortal and Deadly Conjuring Up Reasons: Original Sin, Fragile Connections, Church and State Aristocratic Historiography: Advocacy and Resistance Metaphorical Enhancements: Floods, Propagation, Legions, and Dutch Treats 2. Madness, Extirpation, and Defoe's Shortest Way withthe Dissenters Madness Root and Branch Defoe's Shortest Way, Sacheverell's Political Union, and Religious Conflict The Shortest Way: The Bible and Other Clues beyond the Obvious Response and Judgment Defoe as a Character of His Own Creation Part II: Taking the Cure and Improving the Species: Sermons, Compulsion, and Methodists 3. The Thirtieth of January Sermon: From Exterminationto Inclusion The Thirtieth of January Sermon and Royalist Law The High Church Response and the Beginning of Change Higher Church and Moderate Responses to the High Church Response Raising the Decibels in a Lowered Church State, Not Church God's Hand, William's Hand, and the Divine Right of Government Retrospective 4. ""Compel Them to Come In,"" Luke 14:23: From Persecution toPersuasion; Against Augustinian Compulsion Revocation of the Edict of Nantes: Response and Rage Contexts Changed and Augustine Charged Happy Had His Works Not Been Preserved Persuade Them to Come In Adopt Men From All the Nations of the Earth: Equiano's Conversion Methodism: From Antagonist to Relation The Spreading Fog Reforming the Reformation? Reforming Reform? Grudging Acceptance Humphry Clinker: Joining the Family Part III: Evolutionary Reversion: The Gordon Riots, Return to Rage, and Reinventing a Cure 6. Déjà Vu All Over Again? The Gordon Riots; Bedlam Revisited, Restoration of Order, and a Trial on Trial Repeal, No Popery, and the Gordon Riots: Destruction and the Puritan Redivivus Renovating the Language of Cultural Regress Church, State, and Political Causation Strategies of Defense and Alternative Responses ""What Is to Depose the Sword?"": The Return to Order; Debate, Arrest, Trial, and Consequences The Trial of Lord George Gordon for Treason, 1781 7. A Very Near Thing: State Terrorism, the Fury of the Aggrieved, and Incompatibility with the Safety of Millions A River Too Far The Trials of Lord George Gordon, 1786 1787, and Excommunication The Trials of Lord George Gordon, 1786 1787: Libeling France and Britain Aftermath: Flight, Conversion, and Sentence True Colors: Robert Watson's Life of Lord George Gordon 8. Coping, Repairing, and Dickens' Barnaby Rudge How to Cope? The World after the Gordon Riots Dickens' Barnaby Rudge: To Point a Moral but Not Adorn a Tale; The Victorian Retrospective and Punishment by Neglect Conclusion, Summary, Implications: A Brief Summary of a Long Book Illustrating Evolution Index
