| Hogarth's Harlot: Sacred Parody in Enlightenment England Contributor(s): Paulson, Ronald (Author) |
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ISBN: 0801873916 ISBN-13: 9780801873911 Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press OUR PRICE: $58.90 Product Type: Hardcover Published: December 2003 Annotation: In 1732, a blasphemous burlesque of the Christian Atonement was published in England without comment from the government or the Church of England. In Hogarth's Harlot, Ronald Paulson explains this absence of official censure through a detailed examination of the parameters of blasphemy in eighteenth-century England and the changing attitudes toward the central tenets of the Christian Church among artists in this period. Discerning a profound spiritual and cultural shift from atonement and personal salvation to redemption, incarnation, and acts of charity and love, Paulson focuses on such influential factors as English antipopery and anti-Jacobitism, as well as the ideas of the English Enlightenment. Offering imaginative and deeply informed readings of a wide range of artistic works -- engravings by Hogarth; poems by Milton, Pope, Christopher Smart, and Blake; plays by Nicholas Rowe and George Lillo; paintings and sculptures by Benjamin West, John Zoffany, Joseph Wright of Derby, and Louis-Franois Roubiliac; and oratorios by George Frederic Handel -- Paulson explores the significance of the medium in which artists produced "sacred parody" and how these works both reflected and influenced attitudes toward the nature of Christianity in England. As England's faithful began to worry less about everlasting felicity in heaven and more about life on earth, these diverse artists provided them with new ways of thinking about both their spiritual and their social existence. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Literary Criticism | English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh - Literary Criticism | European - General - Art | Subjects & Themes - Religious |
| Dewey: 700.482 |
| LCCN: 2002154082 |
| Physical Information: 1.42" H x 6.92" W x 8.78" (1.67 lbs) 448 pages |
| Themes: - Cultural Region - British Isles |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: In 1732, a blasphemous burlesque of the Christian Atonement was published in England without comment from the government or the Church of England. In Hogarth's Harlot, Ronald Paulson explains this absence of official censure through a detailed examination of the parameters of blasphemy in eighteenth-century England and the changing attitudes toward the central tenets of the Christian Church among artists in this period. Discerning a profound spiritual and cultural shift from atonement and personal salvation to redemption, incarnation, and acts of charity and love, Paulson focuses on such influential factors as English antipopery and anti-Jacobitism, as well as the ideas of the English Enlightenment. Offering imaginative and deeply informed readings of a wide range of artistic works--engravings by Hogarth; poems by Milton, Pope, Christopher Smart, and Blake; plays by Nicholas Rowe and George Lillo; paintings and sculptures by Benjamin West, John Zoffany, Joseph Wright of Derby, and Louis-Fran ois Roubiliac; and oratorios by George Frederic Handel--Paulson explores the significance of the medium in which artists produced "sacred parody" and how these works both reflected and influenced attitudes toward the nature of Christianity in England. As England's faithful began to worry less about everlasting felicity in heaven and more about life on earth, these diverse artists provided them with new ways of thinking about both their spiritual and their social existence. |
Contributor Bio(s): Paulson, Ronald: - Ronald Paulson is professor of English and art history at the Johns Hopkins University. His many books include Breaking and Remaking: Aesthetic Practice in England, 1700-1820; Book and Painting: Shakespeare, Milton, and the Bible; Representations of Revolution, 1789-1820; and Literary Landscape: Turner and Constable. |
