The light of the eye : doctrine, piety and reform in the works of Thomas Sherlock, Hannah More and Jane Austen

This thesis investigates the ways in which three eighteenth-century writers, Bishop Thomas Sherlock, Hannah More and Jane Austen embody orthodox Anglican doctrine according to their individual perceptions of the enlightening properties of Protestant Christianity. After situating them in their respective gender, literary and ecclesiastical contexts, I examine some of their key doctrines and analyse excerpts from their works. My selection of passages from Sherlock's works is fairly comprehensive, but in the case of More and Austen, where there is already a formidable body of literary criticism, it is more selective. Thus, I focus on doctrine in More's tracts, Strictures on the System of Female Education, An Essay on St Paul and most especially Coelebs in Search of a Wife and in the case of Austen, on her prayers and select passages from Sense and Sensibility and Mansfield Park. I conclude that, although diverse in their particular kind of Anglicanism (High, Evangelical and Median) and in their choice of genre, transparency or obscurity (anonymity and pseudonymity) and the various narratological strategies some of them invoke to circumvent certain taboos, Sherlock, More and Austen champion the same central orthodox doctrines, defend them against current alternatives to orthodoxy such as Latitudinarianism, Deism and various forms of Freethinking, and promote similar moral and ecclesiastical reforms. However, indirectly (through female characters who resist male representation or control) the women writers subject their ostensibly authorially-endorsed male narrators/characters to scrutiny and sometimes (when the males objectify the women) subversion.

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Department of English Language and Literature

Year dc:date.issued

2002

Author dc:creator

• Brodrick, Susan Isabel

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11427/6918

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/6918