2002 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
English Catholic Intellectuals and Medievalism
| Project/Area Number |
12610492
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
英語・英米文学
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| Research Institution | Kobe University |
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Principal Investigator |
NOTANI Kenji Kobe University, Faculty of Cross-Cultural Studies, Associate Professor, 国際文化学部, 助教授 (80164698)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2000 – 2002
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| Keywords | Catholicism / Medievalism / Distributism / T.S. Eliot / Hilaire Belloc / Eric Gill |
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| Research Abstract |
The present research investigates the relationship between the Catholic intellectuals in England and medievalism. Medievalism has been understood as one of the key elements of the Romantic Movement, especially in the fields of architecture and literature. Being unhappy with the common image of the Middle Ages which was propounded by mainstream Protestant historians in the nineteenth century to depreciate the Catholic ages as "dark", Gothic revivalists in architecture and gothic novelists in literature looked into them to find a new inspiration for combating the mechanistic society brought about by the Industrial Revolution.
John Ruskin and William Morris were exemplary figures in this looking back trend. Both of them, as earnest medievalists, presented an alternative to the prevalent capitalistic philosophy of life. They believed the arts need a real community like the one found in the medieval times. The works and the cultural and artistic impact of these two medievalists have been comparatively well studied, but the achievements of Catholic intellectuals have not received enough attention, which they well deserve. After the restoration of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in England in 1850, the Catholicism in England gained a gradual advancement in dominantly Protestant country. It is obvious that the Oxford Movement in the Anglican church with the conversion of J.H. Newman, and the artistic contribution by A.W. Pugin helped Catholics have pride in their faith.
However, it is the Pope Leo XIII's encyclical, De Rerum Novarum, that gave Catholic intellectuals, such as H. Belloc, Eric Gill and Vincent McNabb, a guiding spirit to fight the modern industrial problems. The present research paid a special attention to Distributism and its impact on T.S. Eliot discernible in the pages of After Strange Gods.
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Research Products
(6 results)
