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Charlotte Bronte, Religious Romantic
Abstract
Built on a religiously Romantic aesthetic, Charlotte Bronte's works could not be easily understood by the evangelical movements within Victorian society and were, therefore, mistakenly censored as "anti-Christian." However, like Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Bronte's world view stresses the interconnectedness of the religious and the Romantic spirits; thus, through nature, we learn to imagine what is unseen; through the imagination, we learn to think of others' feelings; and through love, we learn to feel God's unseen love for us. Bronte sought her inspiration in nature because she felt it could elevate the feelings and lead one to what she called Truth, a higher understanding of reality and God. The process of creation can also lead one to God as the imagination transforms inspiration and intuition into art and, through its medium, leads others to Truth. The imagination, though an important faculty, is not as important as loving well. The experience of loving intensifies our understanding of ourselves and of others; the experience of loving well leads us to transcend the bounds of human love and experience the purity of God's love. Bronte's novels embrace her religiously Romantic philosophy. The main characters are looking to love and be loved, and their search for kinship leads them to reflect on the beauty of nature, the importance of the imagination, and the place of God in their lives. Although these characters reject the tenets of orthodoxy in favor of a natural religion based upon intuitively derived doctrines, they, like Jane Eyre, are not "anti-Christian."
Subject Area
British and Irish literature|Religion
Recommended Citation
Donaher, Patricia, "Charlotte Bronte, Religious Romantic" (1995). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9600730.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9600730