British Poets and Secret Societies (Routledge Revivals)

British Poets and Secret Societies (Routledge Revivals)
Author: Marie Mulvey-Roberts
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 202
Release: 2014-08-01
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 131763490X

A surprisingly large number of English poets have either belonged to a secret society, or been strongly influenced by its tenets. One of the best known examples is Christopher Smart’s membership of the Freemasons, and the resulting influence of Masonic doctrines on A Song to David. However, many other poets have belonged to, or been influenced by not only the Freemasons, but the Rosicrucians, Gormogons and Hell-Fire Clubs. First published in 1986, this study concentrates on five major examples: Smart, Burns, William Blake, William Butler Yeats and Rudyard Kipling, as well as a number of other poets. Marie Roberts questions why so many poets have been powerfully attracted to the secret societies, and considers the effectiveness of poetry as a medium for conveying secret emblems and ritual. She shows how some poets believed that poetry would prove a hidden symbolic language in which to reveal great truths. The beliefs of these poets are as diverse as their practice, and this book sheds fascinating light on several major writers.

British Poets and Secret Societies (Routledge Revivals)

British Poets and Secret Societies (Routledge Revivals)
Author: Marie Mulvey-Roberts
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 202
Release: 2015-12-24
Genre:
ISBN: 9781138796218

A surprisingly large number of English poets have either belonged to a secret society, or been strongly influenced by its tenets. One of the best known examples is Christopher Smart's membership of the Freemasons, and the resulting influence of Masonic doctrines on A Song to David. However, many other poets have belonged to, or been influenced by not only the Freemasons, but the Rosicrucians, Gormogons and Hell-Fire Clubs. First published in 1986, this study concentrates on five major examples: Smart, Burns, William Blake, William Butler Yeats and Rudyard Kipling, as well as a number of other poets. Marie Roberts questions why so many poets have been powerfully attracted to the secret societies, and considers the effectiveness of poetry as a medium for conveying secret emblems and ritual. She shows how some poets believed that poetry would prove a hidden symbolic language in which to reveal great truths. The beliefs of these poets are as diverse as their practice, and this book sheds fascinating light on several major writers.

British Poets and Secret Societies

British Poets and Secret Societies
Author: Marie Roberts
Publisher: Barnes & Noble Imports
Total Pages: 181
Release: 1986-01-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780389206057

A surprisingly large number of English poets have either belonged to a secret society, or been strongly influenced by its tenets. This study concentrates on five major examples: Christopher Smart, Robert Burns, William Blake, William Butler Yeats and Rudyard Kipling. A number of other poets are considered in the course of the book, among them Churchill, Goldsmith, Scott, Shelley and Wilde. The beliefs of these poets are as diverse as their practice, and the book sheds light on their lives and works.

Gothic Immortals (Routledge Revivals)

Gothic Immortals (Routledge Revivals)
Author: Marie Mulvey-Roberts
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2016-05-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 131720641X

First published in 1990, this book represents the first full-length study of into the group of novels designated ‘Rosicrucian’ and traces the emergence of this distinct fictional genre, revealing a continuous occult tradition running through seemingly diverse literary texts. Taking the Enlightenment as a starting point, the author shows how the physician’s secular appropriation of the idea of eternal life, through the study of longevity and physical decay, attracted writers like William Godwin. It focuses on the bodily immortality of the Rosicrucian hero and investigates the novels of five major writers — Godwin, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley, Maturin, and Bulwer-Lytton.

Cults, New Religions and Religious Creativity (Routledge Revivals)

Cults, New Religions and Religious Creativity (Routledge Revivals)
Author: Geoffrey Nelson
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 153
Release: 2011-03-31
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 113682622X

The twentieth century has been marked by an unprecedented outburst of religious activity on a world-wide scale, and in particular by a mushrooming of numerous religious movements. This work, first published in 1987, takes a fresh approach to the understanding of this phenomenon, an approach which takes into account new concepts of human nature and of religion.

Victorian Britain (Routledge Revivals)

Victorian Britain (Routledge Revivals)
Author: Sally Mitchell
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 1014
Release: 2012-08-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 1136716173

First published in 1988, this encyclopedia serves as an overview and point of entry to the complex interdisciplinary field of Victorian studies. The signed articles, which cover persons, events, institutions, topics, groups and artefacts in Great Britain between 1837 and 1901, have been written by authorities in the field and contain bibliographies to provide guidelines for further research. The work is intended for undergraduates and the general reader, and also as a starting point for graduates who wish to explore new fields.

The Economic Development of South-East Asia (Routledge Revivals)

The Economic Development of South-East Asia (Routledge Revivals)
Author: C. D. Cowan
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 195
Release: 2012-11-27
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1136298622

First published in 1964, The Economic Development of South-East Asia: Studies in economic history and political economy contains eight papers originally written for a study group at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. The papers, edited by Professor C. D. Cowan, are written against a background of economic underdevelopment in large parts of Asia. Economic problems increasingly plagued the governments of Asia after the Second World War, and while Western governments were willing to help foster economic development, relations with Asian governments were somewhat hindered by the heritage of their colonial past. Problems also related to the growth of traditional trading ports and export crops, and to the importation of colonial regimes, western funds and skills in the nineteenth century. Such developments come under the loosely generalised concept of imperialism, with its strongly emotional overtones, whose use impedes the objective assessment and analysis of facts. While we understand a good deal about conditions of economic growth in the West, much of what has fostered or retarded growth in other parts of the world remains less clear.

The Routledge Research Companion to Nineteenth-Century British Literature and Science

The Routledge Research Companion to Nineteenth-Century British Literature and Science
Author: John Holmes
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 479
Release: 2017-05-18
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1317042344

Tracing the continuities and trends in the complex relationship between literature and science in the long nineteenth century, this companion provides scholars with a comprehensive, authoritative and up-to-date foundation for research in this field. In intellectual, material and social terms, the transformation undergone by Western culture over the period was unprecedented. Many of these changes were grounded in the growth of science. Yet science was not a cultural monolith then any more than it is now, and its development was shaped by competing world views. To cover the full range of literary engagements with science in the nineteenth century, this companion consists of twenty-seven chapters by experts in the field, which explore crucial social and intellectual contexts for the interactions between literature and science, how science affected different genres of writing, and the importance of individual scientific disciplines and concepts within literary culture. Each chapter has its own extensive bibliography. The volume as a whole is rounded out with a synoptic introduction by the editors and an afterword by the eminent historian of nineteenth-century science Bernard Lightman.

British Freemasonry, 1717-1813

British Freemasonry, 1717-1813
Author: Robert Peter
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 3043
Release: 2016-12-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 131727542X

Freemasonry was a major cultural and social phenomenon and a key element of the Enlightenment. It was to have an international influence across the globe. This primary resource collection charts a key period in the development of organized Freemasonry culminating in the formation of a single United Grand Lodge of England. The secrecy that has surrounded Freemasonry has made it difficult to access information and documents about the organization and its adherents in the past. This collection is the result of extensive archival research and transcription and highlights the most significant themes associated with Freemasonry. The documents are drawn from masonic collections, private archives and libraries worldwide. The majority of these texts have never before been republished. Documents include rituals (some written in code), funeral services, sermons, songs, certificates, an engraved list of lodges, letters, pamphlets, theatrical prologues and epilogues, and articles from newspapers and periodicals. This collection will enable researchers to identify many key masons for the first time. It will be of interest to students of Freemasonry, the Enlightenment and researchers in eighteenth-century studies. Includes more than 550 texts - Many texts are published here by special arrangement with the Library and Museum of Freemasonry, London - Contains over 260 pages of newly transcribed manuscript material - Documents are organized thematically - Full editorial apparatus including general introduction, volume introductions, headnotes and explanatory endnotes - A consolidated index appears in the final volume

Islam and the English Enlightenment, 1670–1840

Islam and the English Enlightenment, 1670–1840
Author: Humberto Garcia
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 367
Release: 2012-01-30
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1421405326

A corrective addendum to Edward Said’s Orientalism, this book examines how sympathetic representations of Islam contributed significantly to Protestant Britain’s national and imperial identity in the eighteenth century. Taking a historical view, Humberto Garcia combines a rereading of eighteenth-century and Romantic-era British literature with original research on Anglo-Islamic relations. He finds that far from being considered foreign by the era’s thinkers, Islamic republicanism played a defining role in Radical Enlightenment debates, most significantly during the Glorious Revolution, French Revolution, and other moments of acute constitutional crisis, as well as in national and political debates about England and its overseas empire. Garcia shows that writers such as Edmund Burke, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Southey, and Percy and Mary Shelley not only were influenced by international events in the Muslim world but also saw in that world and its history a viable path to interrogate, contest, and redefine British concepts of liberty. This deft exploration of the forgotten moment in early modern history when intercultural exchange between the Muslim world and Christian West was common resituates English literary and intellectual history in the wider context of the global eighteenth century. The direct challenge it poses to the idea of an exclusionary Judeo-Christian Enlightenment serves as an important revision to post-9/11 narratives about a historical clash between Western democratic values and Islam.