The solitary figure of Newman in the background’: Conservative Ideology in John Henry Newman and T.S. Eliot

Abstract

Some major strains of T.S. Eliot’s critical thought (his Anglo-Catholic mistrust of Protestantism, Private Judgment, extreme individuality, Romanticism, and Arnoldian humanism) derive in part from his careful study of the works of Victorian religious writer John Henry Newman. Misgivings regarding the subjective basis of thought since the reformation caused Newman and Eliot to maintain resolute commitment to conservative ideas regarding doctrine, dogma, and “tradition” in order to retain an authority lacking in Protestant-influenced positions. After establishing this line of continuity, I suggest that identifying strains of Newman’s authoritarian ideology in the Anglo-Catholic foundation of Eliot’s thought furthers our understanding of Eliot’s reliance on literary form as a refuge from humanist subjectivity, which Eliot himself identified as a derivation of the secular “liberalism” Newman abhorred. Moreover, a fuller recognition of Newman’s impact on Eliot’s turn to formalism should remind us that Eliot’s ideas exerted a constructive influence on respected hallmarks of New Critical procedure. In addition, however, I outline the impact of both men on the orthodox Christian ideology of much New Critical thought, an ideology that led to critical practices recent critics have found disquieting: a rigidly conservative focus on the traditional canon and a related reluctance to engage with ideological issues (race, gender, class, ethnicity, identity). Rather than assigning blame or wishing to cancel, I seek to clarify one significant unnoticed result of Newman’s thought.