Wolff, Robert Lee. Gains and Losses: Novels
of Faith and Doubt in Victorian England (New York and London: Garland,
1977).
Wolff praises Hypatia’s “vivid and engaging prose style”, its
historical authenticity, the depiction of Hypatia, and its readability.
He writes that Kingsley had two main intentions in writing the novel. He
was criticizing Transcendentalism, held by Emerson and others, wishing
“to illustrate the dangers of the intellectual arrogance which falsely
persuaded individual human beings that they could seek and find their own
deity, ignoring the Church and religious tradition” (274). Also,
suspicious of the intellect and believing that the only path to faith was
through emotional commitment, Kingsley was attacking the Tractarians and
converts like Newman whom he held were “groping in the dead past for outworn
dogmas and practices” (275).
Hypatia;
Emerson;
Transcendentalism;
Catholicism;
Celibacy. |
