Blake. Wordsworth. Religion.: New Directions in Religion and Literature

Provides a unique study of Blake and Wordsworthâ?"these pre-eminent English Romantics are rarely studied comparatively.

Jonathan Roberts is Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Liverpool, UK.

Series Editors Preface \ Note on Text and Abbreviations \ Foreword by Christopher Rowland \ 1. Introduction \ 2. Two religious visions \ 3. Biography and history \ 4. Autobiography \ 5. Mysticism and psychedelics \ 6. Theology \ 7. Religion \ 8. In conclusion \ Acknowledgments \ Bibliography \ Index

"Focusing on the work of Blake and Wordsworth, Jonathan Roberts's fine study takes us on a hermeneutical journey that underscores the complex nature of religious experience. As it correlates a wide range of interpretive approaches (autobiographical, historical, theological and the like), this is a book that will find a large and diverse readership not only among students of literature but among all those interested in what it means to read a poem or a set of poems as the expression of a 'religious' sensibility."
This short study is generous-minded, highly intelligent and readable, and calculated to send the reader back with renewed interest to the Blake and Wordsworth texts which it has selected
In this stimulating and enjoyable book, Jonathan Roberts...effects something of a reconciliation between traditionally isolated methods of hermeneutics... In Roberts' presentation of the methods, he achieves with the discussion of religion and literary criticism what he believes Blake and Wordsworth to have achieved with their poetry: namely, a more complex and holistic, a more cooperative and dialectical approach to religious experiences and to the texts which purport them.