"Love me! Baby! Love God!": Courtship, marriage, and the emergence of a Kingsleyan Ascetics, 1839–1845
"Love me! Baby! Love God!": Courtship, marriage, and the emergence of a Kingsleyan Ascetics, 1839–1845
Since the 1930s several important facets of Charles Kingsley's character and episodes from his career have been explained in narrowly biographical terms. His anti-Catholicism, rejection of celibacy and feud with John Henry Newman have been diagnosed as reactions to Kingsley's 1840s struggle to "rescue" his future wife, Frances Grenfell, from her plans to join a Tractarian nunnery, persuading her that marriage and a sacramental form of sexual intercourse were her true vocation. Drawing on the correspondence and diaries of both Frances ("Fanny") and Charles, this chapter reveals that, far from rejecting marriage on Tractarian grounds, the Grenfells' initial reluctance to admit Kingsley's suit reflected more familiar concerns of status and wealth. The chapter considers how successive generations of historians came to adopt the familiar narrative of Fanny's "rescue", pointing to evidence that Kingsley himself sought to refashion his courtship narrative in such terms.
Conlin, Jonathan
3ab58a7d-d74b-48d9-99db-1ba2f3aada40
2021
Conlin, Jonathan
3ab58a7d-d74b-48d9-99db-1ba2f3aada40
Conlin, Jonathan
(2021)
"Love me! Baby! Love God!": Courtship, marriage, and the emergence of a Kingsleyan Ascetics, 1839–1845.
In,
Conlin, Jonathan and Klaver, Jan Marten Ivo
(eds.)
Charles Kingsley: Faith, Flesh, and Fantasy.
(Routledge Studies in Cultural History)
Routledge.
Record type:
Book Section
Abstract
Since the 1930s several important facets of Charles Kingsley's character and episodes from his career have been explained in narrowly biographical terms. His anti-Catholicism, rejection of celibacy and feud with John Henry Newman have been diagnosed as reactions to Kingsley's 1840s struggle to "rescue" his future wife, Frances Grenfell, from her plans to join a Tractarian nunnery, persuading her that marriage and a sacramental form of sexual intercourse were her true vocation. Drawing on the correspondence and diaries of both Frances ("Fanny") and Charles, this chapter reveals that, far from rejecting marriage on Tractarian grounds, the Grenfells' initial reluctance to admit Kingsley's suit reflected more familiar concerns of status and wealth. The chapter considers how successive generations of historians came to adopt the familiar narrative of Fanny's "rescue", pointing to evidence that Kingsley himself sought to refashion his courtship narrative in such terms.
This record has no associated files available for download.
More information
e-pub ahead of print date: 27 December 2020
Published date: 2021
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 443431
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/443431
PURE UUID: efc33a50-87d0-4c50-9c88-850651b8666e
Catalogue record
Date deposited: 25 Aug 2020 16:30
Last modified: 09 Jan 2022 03:23
Export record
Contributors
Editor:
Jonathan Conlin
Editor:
Jan Marten Ivo Klaver
Download statistics
Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.
View more statistics
