Mack, Edward C. Public Schools and
British Opinion, 1780 to 1860: An Examination of the Relationship Between
Contemporary Ideas and the Evolution of an English Institution (London:
Methuen, 1938).
Mack briefly describes Kingsley’s Christian Socialism as an odd mixture of
democracy, socialism, Christianity, and fascism and observes that it was
more akin to Tory paternalism than to democratic socialism. Kingsley’s muscular
Christianity, according to Mack, meant little more than the state of cleanliness
and good physical development.
Christian
Socialism ;
Muscular Christianity .
|
MacNeice, Louis. Varieties of Parable
(Cambridge: Cambridge at the University Press, 1965).
MacNeice discusses The Water-Babies , “one of the most uneven and
ragbaggy books in the language” (83). Though he enjoys the fantasy and
escapism, he is greatly critical of the digressions about contemporary disputes
and excessive moralizing. While Lewis Carroll also introduces aspects
of contemporary problems into his works, he does not allow them to interfere
with the story. However, Kingsley does, “and in a story which, potentially,
had many of the virtues of a myth it is a very serious fault” (83).
The Water-Babies
; Didacticism
.
|
Maison, Margaret M. The Victorian
Vision: Studies in the Victorian Novel (New York: Sheed & Ward,
1961).
Maison considers Kingsley’s religious and spiritual thought as represented
in his novels. She declares that matters of the soul tend to be well
overshadowed in these works by stories of adventure, by depictions of physical
activity, by scenes of daring and so on. However, one pervasive religious
theme in Kingsley’s novels is the spiritual development of the characters
through strong physical activity. She contends that one of Kingsley’s
most dominant beliefs is that man’s soul necessarily suffers from long exposure
to dire physical conditions. It was as important a duty of the parson,
Kingsley believed, to care for social, economic, and political reform as
to cater to more spiritual elements. “Thus might Kingsley answer any
critic likely to accuse him of preferring sanitation to meditation” (127).
Maison also briefly considers Kingsley’s desire to reconcile religion with
science.
Religion
; Manliness
; Science
; Novels
.
|
Makman, Lisa Hermine. “Child’s Work
is Child’s Play: The Value of George MacDonald’s Diamond,” Children’s
Literature Association Quarterly Vol. 24, No. 3 (Fall 1999): 119-129.
Makman discusses Kingsley's treatment of the child in The Water-Babies,
as well as that of Lewis Carroll in Alice's Adventures in
Wonderland, in her examination of MacDonald's At the Back of the North
Wind . While the latter work, she declares, presents the child
as the new toy-child, depicting, after the cessation of child-labor, the
gradual development of the notion that children are essentially toys, Kingsley's
novel has a different orientation. "But while Kingsley emphasizes the
mysterious nature of the play-world and its inhabitants, MacDonald focuses
more on the mysterious nature of the child who can enter that world" (122).
The Water-Babies
; MacDonald,
George ; Children
; Carroll,
Lewis .
|
Manlove, C. N.
“Charles Kingsley (1819-75) and The Water-Babies ,” in his Modern
Fantasy: Five Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975):
13-54.
Manlove relates this examination of the major
themes, theories, and stylistic devices of The Water-Babies to Kingsley's
wider views. He contends that we should be tentative about categorically
assigning a specific idea to Kingsley. The one constant is the protean
nature, the multiplicity, the diversity, the volatility, and uncertainty of
his thought. Kingsley's many contradictions have "a natural home" in The
Water-Babies (17). Manlove believes that the split in Kingsley's
depiction of Tom's character not only lies at the root of the difficulties
in The Water-Babies and Kingsley's other works but also mirrors the
manifest divisions in Kingsley's own personality and thought, for example
the divide between Kingsley the materialist and the mystic, between Kingsley
as scientist and Christian. Manlove concludes that "Kingsley was not more
of a materialist than a mystic: rather he was each with divided faculties.
About the only thing that unites the dualism in himself and his work is his
vigour" (53).
The Water-Babies
; Dualism in Kingsley
; Natural
Theology .
|
Manlove, Colin.
“Charles Kingsley, H. G. Wells, and the Machine in Victorian Fiction,” Nineteenth-Century
Literature Vol. 48, No. 2 (Sept. 1993): 212-239.
Manlove declares that apart from Samuel Butler in his Erehwon , the
only important Victorian writers who focus on the central role the machine
plays in life and nature are H. G. Wells, in The Time Machine and
The War of the Worlds , and Kingsley, in The Water-Babies
. He argues that though The Water-Babies may appear to be a
marine pastoral, machines and engines are mentioned over and over again and
the animals themselves are treated as in part machines. He considers
that The Water-Babies reflects Kingsley's view that the whole order
of nature functions as one great engine. In fact, the content and the
style of the novel renders it a type of organic engine itself. "The
Water-Babies is an amazing diversity of contexts, characters, and apparent
irrelevancies, all bound together by secret principles that make it a machine
without being a monolithic one -- indeed, it manages to fuse all the variety
that Kingsley saw in nature with the purposiveness of the engine."
Dickens ;
Machine,
The ; The Water-Babies
.
|
Manlove, Colin. “Charles Kingsley: The
Water-Babies,” in Christian Fantasy: From 1200 to the Present (Notre
Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992): 183-208.
Manlove provides a thorough analysis of the themes and structure of The
Water-Babies paying particular attention to the distinct Christian pattern
of the novel’s narrative. Throughout his treatment Manlove compares and contrasts
the work of Kingsley with that of George MacDonald.
The Water-Babies
; MacDonald,
George ; Religion
.
|
Manlove, Colin. “MacDonald and
Kingsley: A Victorian Contrast” in William Raeper (ed.) The Gold Thread:
Essays on George MacDonald (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1990):
140-162.
In this article Manlove compares and contrasts the characters, the views,
and the writings of Kingsley and George MacDonald, who, he declares were
arguably the only two significant writers of Christian fantasy in the Victorian
period. Generally, Kingsley, whose belief and involvement in science were
much greater than MacDonald's, places nature first while MacDonald chooses
"supernature." Kingsley's God is so identifiable with the works of
His creation that He is only distinguishable from them by faith. The
God of MacDonald, who has a stronger sense of the supernatural and the mystical,
is invariably a person, whereas for Kingsley He is a force. Nevertheless,
Manlove argues that the two writers for all their differences share a particular
common bond, namely "that they chose, alone and at almost the same time in
the nineteenth century, to put what they could of the divine presence in
the fairy tale" (159).
MacDonald,
George ; Religion
; Science
; The
Water-Babies .
|
Marmo, Macario. The Social
Novel of Charles Kingsley (Salerno: Di Giacomo, 1937).
In this book length study of Kingsley’s life, personality, views, and works
Marmo focuses in particular on the art as well as the social implications
of Kingsley’s social novels. He concludes that Kingsley the man was
more significant than his poetry and novels. His very diverse deeds
and objectives were greater than the art of his literary works. Above
all, Marmo contends, Kingsley was a vehement opponent of democracy as well
as of rampant laissez-faire competition. In summing up Marmo
declares “But now that this selfish democratic system has reached its crisis
and civilization is centering again round Rome, we must recognize in Kingsley
an ideal Pioneer; for Charles Kingsley denounced the foul competitive
system at the time of its birth, and remained all his life the assertor of
the Collectivist Ideal and the monitor of Co-operation as the one remedy for
unbridled competition” (114).
Overview
; Full Book
Treatment ; Novels .
|
Martin, Robert Bernard (ed.).
Charles Kingsley's American Notes: Letters from a Lecture Tour,
1874 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1958).
Martin publishes twenty-four letters that Kingsley wrote to his wife Fanny
from the United States and Canada while on a several month long lecture tour
in 1874 with his daughter Rose. These letters are in the Morris L.
Parrish Collection of Victorian Novelists in the Princeton University Library.
Martin provides an introduction sketching Kingsley’s life and views together
with an overview of the American tour. He also briefly discusses some
of the American reactions to this visit and some reviews of Kingsley’s lectures.
America ;
Letters
from America .
|
Martin, Robert Bernard. The
Dust of Combat: A Life of Charles Kingsley (London: Faber and Faber,
1959).
A full book biography of Kingsley with excellent critical analyses of his
writings, practical works and his multifarious views and ideas. Contains
good illustrations.
Full Book Treatment
; Overview
; Social
and Political Views
|
Martineau, Violet. John Martineau,
The Pupil of Kingsley. London: Edward Arnold, 1921.
There is frequent mention of Kingsley in this short account of the life of
John Martineau written by his daughter. Martineau became a private pupil
of Kingsley in his house in 1850 when he was fifteen years old. He remained
there for a year and a half. He was strongly influenced by Kingsley during
this time and he maintained the relationship during later life. Violet Martineau
has collected in this biography many letters written by her father. These
letters have numerous references to Kingsley.
Martineau,
John.
|
Matthews, Ruth Estelle. “Three
Articles from the Pen of Charles Kingsley,” Stanford Studies in Language
and Literature (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1941): 312-20.
Matthews discusses the background behind Kingsley’s publication of four articles
in a Colorado Springs periodical, Out West . She prints the
text of three of the articles, all unpublished apart from in Out West.
They had originally been published on March 23, 1872, April 6, 1872, and
June 20, 1872 respectively.
America ;
Colorado
Springs .
|
Maynard, John. “Victorian Discourses
on Sexuality and Religion,” University of Hartford Studies in Literature
Vol. 19, Nos 2 & 3 (1987): 61-69.
For Kingsley, according to Maynard, religion and sexuality are thoroughly
intermingled. His dislike of Newman stemmed in large part from his strong
aversion to religious celibacy. However, all forms of sexual license
for Kingsley were anathema. The proper place for sexuality was within
marriage, with only one marriage in a lifetime. “Celibacy is religion
without sex; licentiousness, sex without religion. The via media for
Kingsley, married religious sexuality, allows one unified discourse: married
sexuality repairs the Fall and leads us from earth to heaven, which is only
more – and more intensely – of the same” (63). Kingsley also depicts
competing types of sexuality in certain of his writings. For example,
in Hypatia the struggle between the intellectual views of different
religious groups in 5th century Alexandria may be seen as just as much a
competition of opposite sexual styles. Similarly, Westward Ho!
may be understood from the standpoint of opposite sexual religious world
views as the conflict “between chaste, successful Protestants and lewd, unsuccessful
Spanish Catholics” (64).
Religion
; Sexuality
; Celibacy
; Hypatia
; Westward
Ho! .
|
McAlpin, Edwin A. "The Conflict
Between Theology and Spirituality. Hypatia , by Kingsley," Old
and New Books as Life Teachers (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Doran,
1928): 109-124.
After briefly sketching several other of Kingsley’s novels, McAlpin provides
a longer though not very substantive account of Hypatia.
“Without defining his conviction in words Kingsley indicates in the experience
of Raphael Aben-Ezra the supreme importance of Christianity as a life rather
than as a set of theological doctrines and dogmas” (121-22).
Hypatia.
|
McCabe, Joseph. “Hypatia,” The Critic
43, no. 3 (September 1903): 267-272.
McCabe strongly criticizes Kingsley’s depiction of Hypatia in the novel of
the same name. It is “gravely unjust and misleading”. It is far from a true
historical account, McCabe contending that an assiduous examination of the
admittedly sparse authorities would result in “a far more commanding personage”
than Kingsley’s portrait. In particular, the historical Hypatia, argues McCabe,
was a much more serious and prominent intellectual figure in Alexandria than
the picture presented by Kingsley. “It is impossible to conceive her pouring
out the dithyrambs in which Mr. Kingsley’s naïve maiden delights, or
as allying herself with a repulsive old hag in a series of incantations to
Apollo and believing he would appear in bodily form” (271).
Hypatia.
|
McCausland, Elizabeth D. “Dirty
Little Secrets: Realism and the Real in Victorian Industrial Novels,” The
American Journal of Semiotics Vol. 9, Nos. 2-3 (1992): 149-165.
McCausland discusses the role of sewage and its resultant illnesses in Alton
Locke. Sewage or excrement is also a metaphor for the waste produced
by the rich after they consume all the surplus value created by the toil
of the working classes. Sewage is “a sign of the suffering of the poor,
all that is left of them after the rich have devoured them; this suffering
is a result of the very system which claims to be creating a prosperous and
civilized England” (158).
Alton Locke
; Sewage ;
Social
and Political Views .
|
Meadows, A. J. “Kingsley’s Attitude
to Science,” Theology Vol. LXXVIII, No. 655 (January 1975): 15-22.
Meadows declares that Kingsley was unlike many of his religious contemporaries
in his belief that science and even the theories of Darwin actually strengthened
the truths of Christianity. He also states that Kingsley viewed science as
a vehicle for improving society, for example the promotion of public health.
In addition, Meadows writes that Kingsley though an enthusiastic practitioner
of science was still an amateur in a field that was quickly becoming professional.
Science ;
Religion
; Darwin
; Health
.
|
Melville, Lewis. “The Centenary
of Charles Kingsley,” Contemporary Review Vol. 115 (June 1919): 670-674.
Melville’s appreciation of Kingsley’s life and works contains little that
he did not write in his 1906 Victorian Novelists . However, he
is more certain this time that Westward Ho! is Kingsley’s best work.
“The deeds of derring–do in the South Seas and on the Spanish Main, and the
story of the defeat of the great Armada are admirably told, and are comparable
with similar episodes in the best works of any other author. There
Kingsley is at his best, and his best is very good indeed” (674).
Overview
; Poetry
; Characterization
in Novels ; Westward
Ho! .
|
Melville, Lewis. "Charles Kingsley,"
in his Victorian Novelists (London: Archibald Constable, 1906): 106-124.
Melville reviews Kingsley’s life and works. He praises some of
Kingsley’s shorter poems though considering that his poetry in general is
not up to the standard of his romances. Yeast is more a pamphlet
than a novel and is spoiled by Kingsley’s dissertations on his own views.
Though the story of Alton Locke is slight, the novel’s characterization
is superior to that of Yeast . Melville praises Hypatia
for its “brilliant and forcible picture of life”, for its fine characterization,
and its good planning. It is, however, “sometimes stagey, and often
melodramatic, and not infrequently grandiloquent” (114, 118). Westward
Ho! is Kingsley’s most successful novel though it does not quite reach
the level of Hypatia . Melville singles out Kingsley’s command
of language and his scene-painting. “. . . it is this power of description
that distinguishes him above his contemporaries, with the exception, perhaps
of Disraeli; indeed, places him in this respect above all writers since Scott,
and even Scott’s landscape does not always seem so spontaneous” (124).
Overview
; Novels
; Poetry
;
Characterization in Novels .
|
Mendelson, Alan. “Two Glimpses of Philo
in Modern English Literature: Works by Charles Kingsley and Francis Warner,”
The Studia Philonica Annual: Studies in Hellenistic Judaism
Vol. III (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1991): 328-343.
Mendelson examines the treatment of Philo and his views in Kingsley’s historical
novel Hypatia and in his series of lectures Alexandria and Her
Schools delivered at Edinburgh’s Philosophical Institution in 1854. Mendelson’s
analysis also extends to Kingsley’s treatment of the Jews and Judaism. Both
of the latter, writes Mendelson, are dealt with in very pejorative terms,
with Kingsley consistently displaying anti-Jewish rancour and bigotry.
Hypatia; Philo ; Anti-semitism
|
Mendilow, Jonathan. The Romantic
Tradition in British Political Thought (Totowa, New Jersey: Barnes
& Noble, 1986).
Mendilow examines aspects of Kingsley’s political philosophy and discusses
some primary influences on its development: Carlyle, Shelley, Byron, Maurice,
Wordsworth, Southey, Burns, Owen. He also stresses Kingsley’s advocacy
of increased State involvement in a variety of societal spheres, for example
a special ministry for sanitation, broad-ranging laws regulating employer-employee
relations, an emigration scheme, more State involvement in education.
For Kingsley a paternal government “would orchestrate the different sections
of the people to produce the harmonious composition of a good society” (180).
Social
and Political Views ; Political
Thought, Influences on his ; Carlyle ;
Maurice
; St. Elizabeth
of Hungary .
|
Menke, Richard. "Cultural Capital and
the Scene of Rioting: Male Working-Class Authorship in Alton Locke,
" Victorian Literature and Culture Vol. 28, No. 1 (2000): 87-108.
Menke considers “the protean Locke and the story Kingsley tells about him
not as figures of pure writing but as representations of the relationship
between the ‘condition of England problem’ and the sphere of cultural production.
– specifically, between the social problem of class oppression and what John
Guillory, after the French sociologist of culture Pierre Bourdieu, has taught
us to call ‘cultural capital’”. Menke argues that Alton Locke
is concerned with a very practical feature of cultural capital: “ linguistic
access to the correct forms of literary language, institutional
access to publication or patronage, material access to the time and
tools necessary for writing literature, socio-literary access to the
appropriate genres and traditions.” Menke also contends that “the novel’s
treatment of Chartist politics impinges upon its construction of male, working-class
authorship as a resolvable analogue and displacement of the problems raised
by radical politics” (88).
Alton Locke
; Chartism
; Cooper, Thomas
.
|
Merrill, Lynn L. “Charles Kingsley and
the Wonders of the Shore,” in her The Romance of Victorian Natural History
(New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989).
This chapter considers Kingsley the naturalist and especially his treatment
of natural history in Glaucus; or, the Wonders of the Shore and to
a lesser extent in The Water-Babies. Merrill shows that Kingsley was
a serious and knowledgeable student of natural history and science and that
his views in these areas had distinct influence on his views in such other
areas as, for example, religion.
Glaucus;
Natural
History ; Science ;
The Water-Babies
; Nature.
|
Morgan, Charles. The House of Macmillan
(1843-1943) (New York: Macmillan, 1944).
Morgan makes frequent reference to Kingsley’s long relationship with the
Macmillan publishing company.
Macmillan’s.
|
Morris, Kevin L. “John Bull and the
Scarlet Woman: Charles Kingsley and Anti-Catholicism in Victorian Literature,”
Recusant History Vol. 23, No. 2 (October 1996): 190-218.
Morris provides a thorough analysis of Kingsley's often virulent anti-Catholicism,
discussing it in the context of other widespread contemporary anti-Catholic
writings and sentiments held by many of the age's prominent intellectuals
and writers. Morris also considers Newman's critique of anti-Catholic "Kingsleyism"
especially as expressed in his Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics
in England .
Catholicism
; Newman
.
|
Morton, A. L. “Parson Lot,” in his The
Matter of Britain: Essays in a Living Culture (London: Lawrence &
Wishart, 1966): 137-143.
Morton provides a brief account of Kingsley’s life and works, paying particular
attention to his endeavors on behalf of the poor as Parson Lot, Christian
Socialist. He praises Kingsley’s genuine commitment to the plight of
the down-trodden though he considers Kingsley was a combination of both Radical
and Tory. Believing in the worker and the aristocrat, it was the classes
in between for whom Kingsley had a great antipathy. Morton also lauds
the depiction of the worker and of Chartism in Alton Locke .
Though Kingsley finally denounces Chartism, this is the first time that English
fiction deals with it seriously and sympathetically. Though Kingsley
never really succeeded in standing apart from his Tory views and though his
socialist work invariably failed, he was, according to Morton, “like Ruskin,
one of those who helped to prepare the ground from which a genuine socialist
movement was to spring a generation or so later” (143).
Overview
; Christian
Socialism ; Chartism
.
|
Moulton, Charles Wells (ed.).
The Library of Literary Criticism of English and American Authors
Vol. VII (Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1959 (c1904])
This is a collection of about 90 short extracts from mainly nineteenth century
writings about diverse aspects of Kingsley’s life and work. It is particularly
useful as an introduction to nineteenth century Kingsleyan studies.
Overview.
|
Mukherjee, Pablo. “Nimrods: Hunting, Authority,
Identity.” The Modern Language Review 100, no 4 (October 2005): 923-939.
Mukherjee discusses Kingsley’s treatment of hunting and game-keeping and
their relationship to evolving social authority in his novel Yeast.
The hero Lancelot Smith is initially depicted as a man whose education owes
far more to sports and hunting than to book learning. His manliness promoted
by hunting would come to typify Victorian imperial authority. However, Lancelot’s
education develops as he learns more from the gamekeeper Tregarva about the
rural poverty and human suffering on the land on which he hunts and which
he has hitherto blindly considered picturesque. Tregarva humanizes the hunting
countryside for Lancelot. “Lancelot’s education as one of the British elite,
that had begun with a spontaneous appreciation of the hunt as a knitter of
physical and moral fibre, is completed only after the gamekeeper implants
in him a particular code of social, paternalist responsibility that in turn
constructs the idealized vision of order” (928).
Yeast;
Hunting;
Rural
Life; Education.
|
Muller, Charles H. “Alton Locke
: Kingsley's Dramatic Sermon,” Unisa English Studies Vol. 14, Nos.
2-3 (1976): 9-20.
Though much of Alton Locke, according to Muller, reads as a political
tract and Alton himself is represented through most of the novel as a dangerous
agitator, a dramatic change occurs at the end with Alton renouncing his subversive
views and embracing religion as a solution. Kingsley seeing no distinction
between the secular and the religious, believed that such desiderata as sanitary
reform and social emancipation would come about through spiritual or religious
emancipation. Alton Locke may be viewed not primarily as a Chartist
novel but as an expression of Kingsley's Christian work on behalf of the
poorer classes. The novel "is really a Christian novel, written in
the spirit of his sermons which never failed to emphasize, on the one hand,
the Gospel message of the Kingdom of God, and, on the other, personal salvation
or reform" (9).
Alton Locke
; Chartism
; Religion
.
|
Muller, Charles H. “The Christian Didactics
and the Sermons of Charles Kingsley,” Communiqué
Vol. 9, No. 1 (1984): 14-44.
In a lengthy article Muller declares that Kingsley the preacher was essentially
a teacher. He examines Kingsley’ style of preaching, his didactic methodology,
and his socio-theological didactics. He declares that Kingsley was
a forceful and emotional preacher, sometimes dynamic and dramatic, but frequently
lacking in incisive intellectual argumentation. When he expounded Scripture
and taught about God, whether he preached to the unsophisticated in Eversley
or to royals at the Chapel Royal or Windsor, he was invariably didactic.
He was consistent in his didactic material: “the statutes of a loving but
just God. God is often revealed as severe and terribly exacting.
But there are times when God is seen as the author of benevolence and mercy”
(33). Muller declares that the didactic purpose of Kingsley’s sermons
is primarily ethical-moral. “It teaches, essentially, that there can
be no change in the social order, no purposeful progress towards the perfect
realization of God’s kingdom on earth, without a spiritual revolution first
taking place within the heart and life of the individual. Freedom from
sin will mean a new spiritual democracy, when men have the strength to resist
sin and choose the right” (39).
Sermons ;
Preacher,
Kingsley as ; Didacticism
; Religion
.
|
Muller, Charles
H. “The Heroes : Kingsley’s Moral Lessons,” Textures
Vol. 2 (1986): 37-44.
Muller sees The Heroes, Kingsley’s retelling of the Greek legends,
as “almost undisguised moral lessons. This is clear from the biblical
style, the personal addresses to the reader, the moral stance and numerous
moral dictums and exhortations spun around the old Greek heroes who are presented
as models of positive initiative, daring, courage and majesty – moral models
for the young reader to admire and emulate” (37).
Heroes, The
; Moral Lessons
; Religion
; Manliness
; Females
.
|
Muller, Charles H. “Poetics and
Providence in Kingsley’s Two Years Ago ,” UNISA English Studies
Vol. 17, No. 2 (1979): 29-39.
In this study of the respective roles of art and God in Two Years Ago
Muller contends strongly that it was "Kingsley's recognition of Providence's
role in his fiction which undermined the value of his art. It made
his art obtrusively didactic. . . . However, it was chiefly because of Kingsley's
belief in the poetic - or, rather, religious - licence of Christian art that
he considered himself free to obtrude his moral commentary" (38).
Two Years
Ago ; Art ; Religion
.
|
Muller, Charles H. “Spiritual
Evolution and Muscular Theology: Lessons from Kingsley’s Natural Theology,”
University of Cape Town Studies in English Vol. 15 (March
1986): 24-34.
Kingsley’s understanding of the relationship between science and religion
is quite straightforward according to Muller. The natural world for
Kingsley everywhere reveals the work of God; everything physical is but a
reflection of the Eternal Realities. The work of the scientist is essentially
a glorification of the Creator. “As a religious thinker, Kingsley was
deductive and intuitive in his logic; as a scientific thinker, he was inductive,
seeing the infinite in the finite, or maxima in minimis , as exemplified
by the wonders of creation in so lowly a creature as the spider-crab.
In seeing the divine mirrored in a pebble or spore, however, he was combining
a scientific and religious vision of life – uniting the function
of the microscope and the telescope, as it were” (31).
Science ;
Religion
; Nature
; Natural
theology ; Glaucus.
|
Muller, Charles H. “The Standard
Victorian Novel of Charles Kingsley and Its Relevance Today,” Communiqué
Vol. 5, No. 2 (1980): 37-46.
Kingsley's novels, according to Muller, typify three major traits of many
Victorian novels: they are didactic; they are frequently sensational; they
have impossibly resourceful heroes. Though Muller finds many good points
in Kingsley's novels, he considers that his art no longer has much relevance:
"it is too subjective, too blatantly polemical or 'preachy', and unrealistic
with its melodramatic or 'heroic' tradition" (45).
Novels.
|
Muller, Charles H. Two Sermons
of Charles Kingsley (Pietersburg, South Africa: University of the North,
1979).
This is the text of two previously unpublished sermon manuscripts from the
Morris L. Parrish Collection, Princeton University Library. Muller,
the transcriber, notes Kingsley’s strong vein of compassion pervading the
sermons. The first, originally preached at Eversley in 1846, stresses that
God does not just belong to some far off eschatological future but that he
is at hand in people’s normal daily life. The second sermon, preached
in 1851 at a child’s funeral, also focuses on a comforting God’s presence
in everyday life. Muller discusses the influence of F.D. Maurice’s teachings
on Kingsley’s “understanding of the present relevance of divine Providence,
and of the Kingdom of God as a present and spreading reality” (3).
Carlyle was another important influence. Muller also discusses the
style and the composition of these two sermons. Though they were manifestly
quickly and carelessly written, probably very shortly before delivery, “Kingsley’s
spoken words, as recorded in the sermons, must have had an almost magical,
and very dramatic, effect on his congregation. In each case the emotional
climax shows how directly they came from the heart”(5).
Sermons ;
Eversley
; Religion
; Carlyle
; Maurice
.
|
Muller, Charles H. “The Water
Babies : Moral Lessons for Children.” UNISA English Studies Vol.
24, No. 1 (1986): 12-17.
Muller discusses the numerous biblical and moral lessons in The Water-Babies
and the work’s patent allegorical and didactic significance. However, he
stresses that the fable’s major aim is to assert God’s abiding love and the
ever presence of divine providence.
The Water-Babies
; Moral Lessons
; Children
; Religion
.
|
Muller, Charles H. “Westward
Ho! -- Sermon in the Guise of Adventure,” UNISA English Studies
Vol. 23, No. 1 (1985): 15-20.
Muller argues that Kingsley’s primary purpose in Westward Ho! was a
moral one, the reinforcement of English Protestant values. The adventure story
was clearly secondary to the delineation of the characters’ virtues and sins.
In addition to Kingsley’s own sermonizing commentary, the characters epitomize
Christian and moral purpose. For example, Eustace personifies moral
failure, Amyas typifies perfect Christian ideals. Such themes as self-rule,
personal or self sacrifice, and divine providence pervade the novel.
Muller also stresses the important virtuous and moral qualities as depicted
in the novel’s women characters, Amyas’s mother, Mrs Leigh, Rose Salterne,
Ayacanora. Kingsley’s message, according to Muller, “to all his masculine
readers is, to value the spiritualising love of woman; and to his women readers,
to emulate the spiritual example of this perfect Christian woman” (20).
Westward
Ho! ; Moral Lessons
; Females
; Characterization
in Novels .
|
Murray, Robert H. "Kingsley and Christian
Socialism" in Studies in the English Social and Political Thinkers of the
Nineteenth Century Vol. I (Cambridge, U.K.: Heffer, 1929): 432-455.
After a brief analysis of the age's social and political context, especially
the Marxist background, Murray provides an overview of Kingsley's life and
works focusing in particular on his activities in the Christian Socialist
sphere.
Overview
; Maurice
; Social
and Political Views ; Christian
Socialism .
|
Myer, Valerie Grosvenor. "Charles
Kingsley's Hypatia : A Seminal Novel," Notes and Queries Vol.
39, No. 2 (June 1992): 179-180.
Myer writes that Dickens and Eliot were influenced by Hypatia and
that there are echoes of incidents in this novel in their own Great Expectations
and Daniel Deronda respectively.
Dickens;
Eliot, George
.
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