Priests of culture
Subtitle: a study of Matthew Arnold & Henry James
By: Douglas W. Sterner.
Series: Sociocriticism ;; vol. 9; Sociocriticism (New York, N.Y.) ;; vol. 9.
Publisher: Peter Lang; Lang AG International Academic Publishers, Peter
Published: 1999
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 282
Subjects: Arnold, Matthew, 1822-1888 -- Criticism and interpretation; James, Henry, 1843-1916 -- Criticism and interpretation; Christianity and literature -- English-speaking countries; Culture -- Social aspects -- English-speaking countries; Modernism (Literature) -- English-speaking countries; Literature, Comparative -- English and American; Literature, Comparative -- American and English
Description: Priests of Culture is an analysis of the thought of two cultural critics, Matthew Arnold and Henry James. Focusing on Arnold's cultural and religious criticism and James's travel literature, this study examines the efforts of both Arnold and James to find in an ideal of "culture" a supreme center of value around which to rally the forces of civilization in the wake of a nineteenth-century crisis of faith and unsettling social change. Arnold responds directly to that crisis in offering a doctrine of "culture" to serve as a bulwark for standards to replace an intellectually crippled Christianity.

James appears to accept the absence of faith, but is even more appalled at the erosion of cultural standards in an America increasingly reduced to a "money-grabbing democracy." Sterner argues that their critiques remain compelling, but the curative, cultural visions of both founder in their attempts to make "culture" serve purposes normally, and properly, reserved to religion.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [269]-277) and index.
Table of contents: label: 1
title: Warp Speed:  Crisis of Faith in an Era of Transition
pagenum: 1; label: 2
title: Matthew Arnold, The Apostle of Culture
pagenum: 23; label: 3
title: Matthew Arnold and the Gospel According to Culture
pagenum: 69; label: 4
title: Apostles in the Wilderness:  Matthew Arnold and Henry James on Culture in America
pagenum: 151; label: 5
title: Henry James and the Communion of Culture
pagenum: 195; label: 6
title: American Dreams:  God and Mammon in the Promised Land
pagenum: 241