Essays in Literature and History

Poetry, religion and the writing of history meet in this collection of James Anthony Froude's essays. Its contents range from Arnold's poems and Oxford to the Book of Job, the lives of saints, Spinoza and the dissolution of monasteries. The pieces appeared in nineteenth-century periodicals, bringing literary criticism into contact with questions of faith, education and historical judgment.

A critical introduction examines Froude's forceful prose and his habit of presenting disputed claims with confidence. In the historical discussion sampled here, Froude warns that a catalogue of wrongdoing can misrepresent an entire age when its balancing details are left out. He also considers how personal experience, national differences and religious loyalties affect our ability to understand other people. Readers interested in Victorian debates can follow an argumentative writer across several subjects, while keeping the introduction's reservations about his certainty in view.