Porter-Szücs Brian
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195399059
- eISBN:
- 9780199896844
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195399059.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
Catholics have responded to the social, economic, cultural, and political changes that we call “modernity” with more complexity and diversity than is usually recognized. The clergy eventually ...
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Catholics have responded to the social, economic, cultural, and political changes that we call “modernity” with more complexity and diversity than is usually recognized. The clergy eventually developed new approaches to pastoral care in order to adjust to an increasingly urbanized landscape, and they found ways to work within the institutions of mass politics and the genres of popular culture. Catholic publicists even appropriated and to some extent domesticated the troublesome vocabulary of modernity—words like “science” and “progress.” Catholics, no less than liberals or socialists, eventually embraced an understanding of historical time that envisioned humanity steadily advancing towards a better future. This dynamic historiosophy did not initially fit well within a Catholic framework, but with each passing decade of the 20th century it became increasingly hard to avoid. Catholicism’s modernity does not look like liberalism’s modernity, but it is no less modern for that.Less
Catholics have responded to the social, economic, cultural, and political changes that we call “modernity” with more complexity and diversity than is usually recognized. The clergy eventually developed new approaches to pastoral care in order to adjust to an increasingly urbanized landscape, and they found ways to work within the institutions of mass politics and the genres of popular culture. Catholic publicists even appropriated and to some extent domesticated the troublesome vocabulary of modernity—words like “science” and “progress.” Catholics, no less than liberals or socialists, eventually embraced an understanding of historical time that envisioned humanity steadily advancing towards a better future. This dynamic historiosophy did not initially fit well within a Catholic framework, but with each passing decade of the 20th century it became increasingly hard to avoid. Catholicism’s modernity does not look like liberalism’s modernity, but it is no less modern for that.
Matthew C. Augustine
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781526100764
- eISBN:
- 9781526138651
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781526100764.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Many scholars of Milton’s early verse have discerned in The Poems of Mr John Milton (1645) a prophecy of the English revolution and of the unsung poet’s transformation into the bard of Paradise Lost. ...
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Many scholars of Milton’s early verse have discerned in The Poems of Mr John Milton (1645) a prophecy of the English revolution and of the unsung poet’s transformation into the bard of Paradise Lost. This chapter attempts to read the poetry of young Milton within the uncertain horizons of his own lived history. It thus focuses on the problematic of becoming at the heart of Poems 1645. For if notes of apocalyptic and rebirth sound throughout the volume, this chapter nonetheless shows how the staging and re-staging of this theme ultimately folds hoped-for millenarian rupture back into the fabric of secular time. What is argued of the Nativity Ode has general application to Milton’s inaugural collection of verse: despite all that it would confirm about Milton’s genius, the shape of his career, and the direction of English history, the most that it can do is resolve upon an indeterminate waiting.Less
Many scholars of Milton’s early verse have discerned in The Poems of Mr John Milton (1645) a prophecy of the English revolution and of the unsung poet’s transformation into the bard of Paradise Lost. This chapter attempts to read the poetry of young Milton within the uncertain horizons of his own lived history. It thus focuses on the problematic of becoming at the heart of Poems 1645. For if notes of apocalyptic and rebirth sound throughout the volume, this chapter nonetheless shows how the staging and re-staging of this theme ultimately folds hoped-for millenarian rupture back into the fabric of secular time. What is argued of the Nativity Ode has general application to Milton’s inaugural collection of verse: despite all that it would confirm about Milton’s genius, the shape of his career, and the direction of English history, the most that it can do is resolve upon an indeterminate waiting.
