
Charles Kingsley
Faith, Flesh, and Fantasy
Routledge (Publisher)
1st Edition
Published on 29. December 2020
Book
Hardback
268 pages
978-0-367-22491-2 (ISBN)
Description
Novelist, poet, Anglican priest, and controversialist, Charles Kingsley (1819-75) epitomizes the bustling Victorian man of faith and letters, a prolific polymath as ready to break a lance with John Henry Newman over Christian doctrine as he was to preach to schoolchildren on the virtues of manly, physical struggle. Kingsley's The Water-Babies and Westward Ho! were best-sellers which became classics of children's literature. Kingsley has come to epitomize the Victorian age.
On closer inspection, Kingsley is harder to categorize: a socialist who was also an imperialist, a Chartist revolutionary who was Queen Victoria's favourite novelist, a natural theologian who popularized Darwin, a priest who celebrated sex as sacrament. Kingsley only appears straightforward if you consider him one piece at a time. The debates he shaped remain with us today: faith and sexuality, economics and exploitation, race and identity. The aim of this book is to present the whole man: to consider the public crusades for public health alongside the most private fantasies of sexual intercourse; to consider the ardent imperialist alongside the Darwinist. It will be of interest to all students of Victorian studies, as well as of British/Imperial history, church history, and especially the history of science.
On closer inspection, Kingsley is harder to categorize: a socialist who was also an imperialist, a Chartist revolutionary who was Queen Victoria's favourite novelist, a natural theologian who popularized Darwin, a priest who celebrated sex as sacrament. Kingsley only appears straightforward if you consider him one piece at a time. The debates he shaped remain with us today: faith and sexuality, economics and exploitation, race and identity. The aim of this book is to present the whole man: to consider the public crusades for public health alongside the most private fantasies of sexual intercourse; to consider the ardent imperialist alongside the Darwinist. It will be of interest to all students of Victorian studies, as well as of British/Imperial history, church history, and especially the history of science.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Target group
College/higher education
Illustrations
1 s/w Photographie bzw. Rasterbild, 1 s/w Abbildung
1 Halftones, black and white; 1 Illustrations, black and white
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
568 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-367-22491-2 (9780367224912)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
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Book
08/2022
1st Edition
Routledge
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E-Book
12/2020
1st Edition
Routledge
€60.49
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E-Book
12/2020
1st Edition
Routledge
€60.49
Available for download
Persons
Jonathan Conlin is senior lecturer in modern history at the University of Southampton.
Jan Marten Ivo Klaver is professor of English Literature and culture at the University of Urbino.
Jan Marten Ivo Klaver is professor of English Literature and culture at the University of Urbino.
Editor
University of Southampton, UK
University of Urbino, Italy
Content
Introduction: Charles Kingsley: "The Most Typical Victorian of Them All" 1. "Love Me! Baby! Love God!": Courtship, Marriage, and the Emergence of a Kingsleyan Ascetics, 1839-1845 2. A "Yeasty State of Mind": Charles Kingsley and the Problem of Self-Culture 3. "To Amuse Merely as a Novel": Alton Locke (1850) and Literary Pleasure 4. Effeminate: Kingsley and the History of an Epithet 5. How Odd is Kingsley's Hypatia? 6. The Fly in the Amber: The Controversy with Newman 7. Kingsley's Muscular Poetics 8. Kingsley's Old Testament Heroes 9. Charles Kingsley and the Evolution of Man and Morals in The Water-Babies 10. Evolutionary and Anglican Afterlives: Death as a Sacrament in Kingsley's Water Babies 11. Kingsley on Race and Empire 12. Kingsley and the Irish 13. Histories and Historians Afterword: Charles Kingsley as Polymath