Surprised by Hope: Possibilities of Spiritual Experience in Victorian Lyric Poetry

Poetry can evoke spiritual experiences by opening readers to surprise and wonder, moving beyond the divide between religious faith and doubt. Drawing on William James's Varieties of Religious Experience and Paul Ricoeur's hermeneutics, this article argues that Victorian lyrics by Thomas Hardy, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Dollie Radford reimagine hope and reframe revelation as an invitation rather than a proclamation. The analysis shows how receptivity to spiritual states in literature challenges the hermeneutics of suspicion and suggests an interpretive disposition that does not guard against but welcomes poetry's potential to transform.

Study at a glance

Abstract

This article reconsiders literature’s capacity to express and evoke spiritual experiences by turning to William James’s The Varieties of Religious Experience, especially his discussion of mysticism and his suggestion that poetry can bring about such states. James’s ideas are especially promising given recent developments in postsecular and postcritical scholarship that problematize a religious/secular divide and call into question a hermeneutics of suspicion. Bringing James into conversation with Paul Ricoeur, I aim to show how receptivity to spiritual experiences in literature might generate expansive models of both poetics and hermeneutics. To pursue these possibilities, my study analyzes three examples of Victorian lyric poems that probe the edges of wonder: Thomas Hardy’s “The Darkling Thrush”, Gerard Manley Hopkins’s “Nondum” and Dollie Radford’s “A Dream of ‘Dreams’”. These case studies strategically select work by writers of various belief or unbelief positions, highlighting the dynamism of the late nineteenth-century moment from which James’s writings emerged. I argue that this poetry facilitates a re-imagination of hope, beyond a faith/doubt dichotomy, as well as a re-framing of revelation, from proclamation to invitation. Building on insights from both James and Ricoeur, my discussion concludes by making the case for cultivating an interpretive disposition that does not guard against but opens toward poetry’s latent potential to take readers by surprise.