Abstract

Examining popular fiction, life writing, poetry and political works, Rebecca Styler explores women's contributions to theology in the nineteenth century. Female writers acted as amateur theologians through the use of secular literary forms, through which they questioned the Christian tradition relative to contemporary concerns about political ethics, gender identity, and personal meaning. Each writer negotiates the gendered constraints and opportunities available to her particular religious setting and her chosen literary genre. Expressing frustrations with their inherited religious tradition, each nonetheless finds resources within it to reconfigure Christianity in creative and earthly ways, to meet pressing personal and social needs. Subjects include the novelist Emma Worboise, Anne Bronte's poetry, Harriet Martineau's Unitarian writings, Josephine Butler's campaign literature, and collective biographies of Bible women by writers including Clara Balfour, Sarah Hale and Anna Jameson.