The Christian Year and the Typological Imagination in John Keble's Parochial Sermons

Abstract

When the young John Henry Newman, on his election to a fellowship at Oriel College, was introduced to his new colleagues he "bore it," as In 1822 Keble was he wrote to a friend, " until Keble took my hand, and then felt so abashed widely regarded as and unworthy of the honour done me, that I seemed desirous of quite "thefirst manin sinking into the ground."! It is strange for the contemporary reader to Oxford," andsuch hear of Newman, one of greatest names not just of nineteenth century was hisreputation Christianity but of modem intellectual history, being so overwhelmed for scholarly by his meeting with a man little known or regarded today except by brilliance and scholars of Victorian religion and culture. But in 1822Keble was widely personal holiness regarded as "the first man in Oxford," and such was his reputation for thatit was not scholarly brilliance and personal holiness that it was not surprising surprising that the that the timid young Newman was overwhelmed. Over the next detimid young cade, as Keble became first Newman's mentor, and later his friend and Newman was ally, the older man's reputation continued to grow. In 1827 he puboverwhelmed. lished The Christian Year, a volume of devotional verses for the Sundays and feast days of the liturgical calendar, which was one of the greatest literary phenomena of the century. In 1831 he was unanimously elected Oxford Professor of Poetry, and in 1833he galvanized the Anglican High Church party into action with his sermon on "National Apostasy." Newman regarded the sermon as the ''birthday'' of the Oxford Movement, the effectsof whose work for liturgical and doctrinal renewal within the Church of England are still felt today, throughout and indeed well beyond the Anglican communion.