The Brontes and Religion

This is the first full-length study of religion in the fiction of the Brontes. Drawing on extensive knowledge of the Anglican church in the nineteenth century, Marianne Thormahlen shows how the Brontes' familiarity with the contemporary debates on doctrinal, ethical and ecclesiastical issues informs their novels. Divided into four parts, the book examines denominations, doctrines, ethics and clerics in the work of the Brontes. The analyses of the novels clarify the constant interplay of human and Divine love in the development of the novels. While demonstrating that the Brontes' fiction usually reflects the basic tenets of Evangelical Anglicanism, the book emphasises the characteristic spiritual freedom and audacity of the Brontes. Lucid and vigorously written, it will open up new perspectives for Bronte specialists and enthusiasts alike on a fundamental aspect of the novels greatly neglected in recent decades.