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"In melting grief and ardent love"

The Hymn, 2009-07, Vol.60 (3), p.16 [Peer Reviewed Journal]

Copyright Hymn Society in the United States and Canada Summer 2009 ;ISSN: 0018-8271

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  • Title:
    "In melting grief and ardent love"
  • Author: Aalders, Cynthia Y
  • Subjects: 18th century ; 19th century ; Hymns ; Poetry ; Religion ; Religious music ; Spirituality ; Women ; Writers ; Writing
  • Is Part Of: The Hymn, 2009-07, Vol.60 (3), p.16
  • Description: "17 While Steele was sent to school as a girl, despite the sharp censure of her great-uncle, then the Baptist minister in Broughton, her formal education appears to have focused mosdy on needlework.18 The deficiencies in this education were compensated for, in part, by Uvely and stimulating interaction with a remarkably Uterary family and inteUectual friends.19 From a young age she wrote poems for family and friends and, as she matured, she found herself at die centre of a Uterary circle that included family members from various generations, as weU as local literati.20 Steele herself attributes her Uterary freedom to the fact that she remained single, and this despite as many as tiiree marriage proposals, including one from the prominent Baptist minister, Benjamin Beddome.21 She felt that if she were to marry, she would be forced to reUnquish some of her efforts as a writer - problematic, in that she considered writing to be her God-given vocation.22 Steele's character as an independent woman of lively inteUect, situated at the centre of a supportive network of family and literary friends, is beginning to emerge - certainly a more nuanced image than the reclusive, melancholic, and extremely pious woman who is revealed in many hymn book companions. "63 This ardency, this spirit of devotion, is surely what caused Steele to become one of the most popular hymnwriters of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as her words resonated not only with those who sang her hymns, but also with those who would similarly attempt devotional expression in verse. [...]her significance is found not only in her own contribution to hymnody, which is considerable, but in the ways in which she provided a model for future women hymnwriters to foUow.64 Steele's verse stands in contrast to tiie stately eloquence of Watts and tiie exuberant confidence of Wesley, offering instead a deeply-felt appeal to God in tiie midst of suffering, an introspective searching for answers to the questions that trouble her. [...]in his preface to Sacred Poetry, Consisting of Psalms and Hymns, Adapted to Christian Devotion, in Public and Private, 2nd ed. According to Madeleine Forell Marshall and Janet Todd, "In many of Cowper's hymns, either the doubt is left intact or we proceed, in an impractical reversal, from faith to doubt."
  • Publisher: Boston: Hymn Society in the United States and Canada
  • Language: English
  • Identifier: ISSN: 0018-8271
  • Source: ProQuest Central
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