The Altar at Home: Sentimental Literature and Nineteenth-Century American Religion

297 Pages·2014·29.884 MB·English

by  Claudia Stokes

The Altar at Home

THE ALTAR AT HOME
SENTIMENTAL LITERATURE
AND NINETEENTH-CENTURY
AMERICAN RELIGION
CLAUDIA STOKES
university of pennsylvania press
philadelphia
Copyright © 2014 University of Pennsylvania Press
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used
for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this
book may be reproduced in any form by any means without
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Published by
University of Pennsylvania Press
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112
www.upenn.edu/pennpress
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Stokes, Claudia.
The altar at home : sentimental literature and nineteenth-century American religion /
Claudia Stokes. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8122-4637-7 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Religion and literature—United States—History—19th century. 2. Sentimentalism
in literature. 3. Christianity in literature. 4. American literature—Women authors—
History and criticism. 5. American literature—19th century—History and criticism. I.
Title.
PS374.R47S76 2014
810.9´3823—dc23
2014003710
For my mother, Sophie Aron Stokes

CONTENTS
Introduction 1
Chapter 1. Revivals of Sentiment: Sentimentalism
and the Second Great Awakening 21
Chapter 2. My Kingdom: Sentimentalism and the Refinement
of Hymnody 67
Chapter 3. The Christian Plot: Stowe, Millennialism,
and Narrative Form 103
Chapter 4. Derelict Daughters and Polygamous Wives: Mormonism
and the Uses of Sentiment 142
Chapter 5. The Mother Church: Mary Baker Eddy
and the Practice of Sentimentalism 181
Notes 217
Bibliography 255
Index 273
Acknowledgments 279

INTRODUCTION
It hardly seems to bear remarking that sentimental literature of the Amer-
ican nineteenth century is steeped in Christian piety. As anyone acquainted
with this female-centered literary aesthetic well knows, sentimental novels
and poems routinely depict religious faith as a balm to the restless spirit and
a beneficent influence on unruly behavior. Countless sentimental texts con-
tain scenes of devout prayer, ardent hymn singing, and religious instruction.
Heart-rending deathbed scenes and leave-takings are softened by promises of
reunion in the afterlife, and Bibles and hymnals serve as the premier tokens
of affection or goodwill.
To readers today, sentimental piety may seem colorless or indistinct.
Prayer, Bible reading, and the pursuit of self-betterment are the principal re-
quirements of Christian observance in sentimental literature; in contrast with
the teachings of Calvinism or Catholicism, salvation in sentimental literature
seems to be available to anyone with faith, with neither ritual nor conver-
sion required. Without the delimiting contours of these conventional features
of Christian observance, sentimental piety appears to be denominationally
impartial and untouched by doctrinal specifics. Early scholarship registered
this perception, as with Ann Douglas’s foundational study of sentimental lit-
erature, The Feminization of American Culture (1977). In that work, Douglas
interpreted the absence of Calvinist rigor in sentimentalism as evidence of
a general lack of theological substance, and she characterized sentimental
piety as “peculiarly unassertive and retiring.”1 David S. Reynolds similarly
described the religious life portrayed in sentimental literature as “deter-
minedly nonintellectual and plain.”2 In response to the perception of senti-
mentalism as theologically vacant, Jane Tompkins offered a spirited defense
of sentimental piety in Sensational Designs (1985), in which she documented
the influence of religious typologies of sacrifice and renewal on sentimental
narratives, as with her analysis of the death of Eva St. Clare in Harriet Beecher