Journal article 832 views
Monstrous Combinations of horrors and mockery? Southey, Catholicism and the Gothic
Caroline Franklin 
Romanticism, Volume: 17, Issue: 1, Pages: 25 - 38
Swansea University Author:
Caroline Franklin
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DOI (Published version): 10.3366/rom.2011.0005
Abstract
This article explores Robert Southey's ambivalence towards Roman Catholicism as expressed in his unjustly-neglected Gothic ballads, many of which used black humour to mock the pre-Reformation Church's corruption and greed. It argues that although he was an unashamed Anglican polemicist Sou...
| Published in: | Romanticism |
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| ISSN: | 1354-991X |
| Published: |
Romanticism
2011
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| Online Access: |
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| URI: | https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa11428 |
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| Abstract: |
This article explores Robert Southey's ambivalence towards Roman Catholicism as expressed in his unjustly-neglected Gothic ballads, many of which used black humour to mock the pre-Reformation Church's corruption and greed. It argues that although he was an unashamed Anglican polemicist Southey's venomous mimicry of Catholic beliefs in his ballads unconsciously channelled a sense of loss for the vitality of irrational and magical aspect of religion then being discarded by Enlightenment Protestants. Paradoxically Southey's poetry, both these popular Gothic ballads sold on the streets and his scholarly verse romances featuring Islamic and Hindu belief in the supernatural, directly inspired Cardinal Newman and many others: helping to instigate the medievalism of the Oxford movement. This of course brought about the revival of the old religion both within and without the Anglican Church. |
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| Keywords: |
Robert Southey, Gothic, Roman Catholicism, ballads |
| College: |
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Issue: |
1 |
| Start Page: |
25 |
| End Page: |
38 |