`Sweeter also than honey': John Ruskin and the Psalms

Author: Tate, Andrew¹

Source: The Yearbook of English Studies, Volume 39, Numbers 1-2, 1 july 2009 , pp. 114-125(12)

Publisher: Modern Humanities Research Association

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Abstract:

This article argues that the Book of Psalms, known in Hebrew as Tehillim, or `praises', figures as a powerful set of intertexts in John Ruskin's writing and also radicalizes his social teaching. The multiplicity of human experiences narrated in the `book of praises', a diverse anthology containing songs that affirm the goodness of Yahweh together with the rightness of his law alongside poetic cries of spiritual desertion, formed a crucial textual resource for Ruskin's complex and sometimes melancholy religious journey. The essay considers Ruskin's work as part of a tradition that the contemporary theologian Walter Brueggemann has called a `psalmic spirituality'. The argument traces Ruskin's appropriation of a Jewish text and explores the ways in which these `songs of praise' inform his critique of nineteenth-century culture both secular and sacred.

Keywords: Psalms; John Ruskin; theologian Walter Brueggemann; spirituality; Jewish; nineteenth-century culture; secular; sacred

Document Type: Research article

Affiliations: 1: Lancaster University

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