Popular Radicalism, Religious Parody and the Mock Sermon in the 1790s
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4890137 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Peter Denney (0009-0003-6058-2663, Griffith University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2012 |
| Volume | 74 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 51-78 |
| Publication date | 2012-10-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | History Workshop Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1363-3554 • E-ISSN: 1477-4569 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/hwj/dbs006 |
| OpenAlex | W2153868392 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 16 |
This article examines the role of religious parody in the popular radical movement in Britain in the 1790s, focusing on a collection of little-known mock sermons and the booksellers who published them. Aimed at a plebeian audience, these mock sermons revived an old tradition of religious satire and drew extensively on the resources of popular culture. They functioned to democratize the meanings of religious rituals, as popular perceptions and practices were fashioned into an authoritative mode of radical political discourse. In part, this was a response to the way in which genuine sermons and other religious rituals had become politicized during the French Revolution debate, particularly on occasions such as public fast days. Intriguingly, however, these mock sermons were not opposed to religious belief, despite being written in a style of populist irreverence. On the contrary, they were all published by booksellers sympathetic to popular religious feeling and were evidently intended to appeal to devout as well as sceptical members of plebeian society. In this sense, mock sermons shed new light on the propaganda war of the 1790s, disclosing the complex religious affiliations of the popular radical movement and highlighting the affinities between millennarian and secular patterns of thought.
Aesthetics · Appeal · Art · Literature · Political radicalism · Political science · Politics · Popular culture · Religious experience · Sermon · Skepticism · Theology · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · History · Law · Philosophy · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity · Religious studies · Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices
The sense of the people
Making of the English Working Class
The Mob Club? The London Corresponding Society and the Politics of Civility in the 1790s
The Life, Works and Reception of an Evangelical Radical
English Evangelical Dissent and the European Conflict 1789–1815
The Thirtieth of January Sermon
William Winterbotham's Trumpet of Sedition
That Odious Class of Men Called Democrats’
The Traces of Shame in England's Glorious Revolution
Languages of Loyalism
British Attitudes to the French Revolution
Evangelicalism and the French Revolution
Thomas Spence
Methodism and Politics in British Society, 1750-1850
The Machiavellian Moment
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2024 - 2025 (2) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |