Newman, Hopkins, the Saints and Literature

It has been quite a fortnight for saints with a literary connection.

Today is the Memorial of Blessed John Henry Newman, the only novelist (I think) to have been recognised as a saint (see here, here, here and here for my earlier thoughts on Newman). Not that his work as a novelist (any more than St Thomas More's work as a writer) was what led to him being beatified.

Newman was an inspirational figure in all sorts of ways even during his own lifetime as I was reminded when I was in the Church of St Aloysius Gonzaga in Oxford this weekend, because not only did Newman preach there but it was also where Gerard Manley Hopkins, who was received into the Church by Newman, was a curate (see also here).

In recent days we have remembered St Francis of Assisi (4th October) about whom the novelist Julien Green (among many others) has written, Blessed Columba Marmion (3rd October) whose Christ in His Mysteries (available here for free in French and here for a price in English translation) inspired Messiaen's Vingt regards sur l'enfant Jesus, and the Holy Guardian Angels (2nd October), whom I mentioned the other day. And that's without even starting on those great writers: St Therese of the Child Jesus and St Jerome.

I should also mention Henry Garnett's The Blood Red Crescent and the Battle of Lepanto in connection with the Memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary last Sunday.

That should keep us going for a while.

Frank Cottrell Boyce on Newman

Frank Cottrell Boyce, the author of Millions among many other great children's books, gave a lecture last week on Newman. As you might expect from Cottrell Boyce, it was both witty and thought-provoking. You can download a PDF of the lecture or listen online. Both are worth doing.

The Man Booker International Prize and John Henry Newman

Looking through the list of finalists for this year's Man Book International Prize which was announced today, I was reminded of something Newman wrote in The Idea of a University:


"First, then, it is to be considered that, whether we look to countries Christian or heathen, we find the state of literature there as little satisfactory as it is in these islands; so that, whatever are our difficulties here, they are not worse than those of Catholics all over the world. I would not indeed say a word to extenuate the calamity, under which we lie, of having a literature formed in Protestantism; still, other literatures have disadvantages of their own; and, though in such matters comparisons are impossible, I doubt whether we should be better pleased if our English Classics were tainted with licentiousness, or defaced by infidelity or scepticism. I conceive we should not much mend matters if we were to exchange literatures with the French, Italians, or Germans."



I don't agree with everything Newman wrote in this particular essay but I do recognise the temptation to look for greener grass in the literature of other countries. So what do we find when we examine the list of finalists? Amin Maalouf, who explores his own complex identity in Origins and In the Name of Identity, is a Catholic but the writers from Catholic Spain and Italy (Juan Goytisolo and Dacia Maraini) are less than enthusiastic about the Church. The Australian, David Malouf, though baptised a Catholic, seems to have stopped going to mass as a teenager. Marilynne Robinson is a Calvinist and Philip Pullman we all know about.


Does this mean that these writers are not worth reading? Of course not: they are all fine writers. But it does mean that we are going to be frustrated if we look to other countries for something we can't find in our own. To return to Newman: "One literature may be better than another, but bad will be the best, when weighed in the balance of truth and morality. It cannot be otherwise; human nature is in all ages and all countries the same; and its literature, therefore, will ever and everywhere be one and the same also. Man's work will savour of man; in his elements and powers excellent and admirable, but prone to disorder and excess, to error and to sin. Such too will be his literature; it will have the beauty and the fierceness, the sweetness and the rankness, of the natural man, and, with all its richness and greatness, will necessarily offend the senses of those who, in the Apostle's words, are really "exercised to discern between good and evil.""

After the Pope's Visit

The impact of the Pope's visit to the UK will be felt for a very long time. The Year of Catholic Education could prove interesting for a start but I want to focus on the significance of Newman's beatification. 

As the Anglican Bishop of Gibraltar in Europe, Geoffrey Rowell, pointed out, Pope Benedict quoted from Newman's Anglican sermons during his beatification homily. It is striking how many great Catholic works of literature were written by authors on their way to the Catholic Church, the most obvious examples being Newman's An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, G.K.Chesterton's Orthodoxy and two of the Father Brown collections, and Sigrid Undset's Kristin Lavransdatter. We need to be careful not to limit our definitions of Catholic Literature.

Cardinal Newman



Here's an A4 sheet I've provided for some of my students:

On Sunday the Pope is going to beatify John Henry Newman, the first Englishman to have been beatified for many years and the first novelist ever to have been beatified. It should therefore be a day of great celebrations. Being beatified means that he is on the 2nd of 3 steps towards being recognised as a saint by the Catholic Church.

Newman has been hugely influential. In his lifetime he was a very well known public figure and was eventually made a cardinal a few years before his death. He has since inspired people from all sorts of backgrounds, ranging from the Pope himself to Sophie Scholl, the young Protestant student who stood up against Hitler and was executed as a result (as you can see in the excellent movie about her life).

Newman (1801-1890) was not just a priest but a poet, a novelist and a great theologian too. His two novels are Loss and Gain, which deals with someone looking for meaning in his life in 19th century Oxford, and Callista, a book about the persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire.

His most famous poem is The Dream of Gerontius, which was set to music by Edward Elgar. Some of his poems are now well known as hymns, notably ‘Lead Kindly Light’ and ‘Praise to the Holiest in the Height’.

He was also really important in the world of education. He was the first rector of what is now University College, Dublin and wrote a highly influential book called The Idea of a University about what an ideal university education should consist of. However, the book he is perhaps best known for is Apologia Pro Vita Sua, in which he explains why he converted from Anglicanism to Catholicism.

Newman was an expert on the early history of Christianity but he was not stuck in the past. He looked backwards in order to move forwards. He once famously wrote that “to live is to change and to be perfect is to have changed often.” That seems like a pretty good motto to live by.

John Henry Newman - 'The Dream of Gerontius'

The forthcoming papal visit to the UK has brought the life and work of Cardinal Newman back into sharp focus.

As one of the greatest thinkers and writers of the 19th Century, Newman has been horribly neglected in the classroom, perhaps in part because his fiction does not reach the same heights as his apologetic work.  However, now is perhaps the time to reintroduce him into the curriculum.

There are some wonderful introductory works by Ian Ker on Newman, including the definitive biography, but the biography is long and life is short, so perhaps there is something to be said for cutting out the middle man and going straight to Newman's writings themselves, especially as The National Institute for Newman Studies has done a wonderful job of putting Newman's work online.

One obvious place to start would be 'The Dream of Gerontius'. Elgar's musical version is now much better known than the original poem but there is enough here to appeal to any student, albeit in a form that will be probably be deeply unfamiliar and initially off-putting.

There was so much to Newman but we have to start somewhere and 'The Dream of Gerontius' is as good a place as any.