Keble was born on 25 April 1792 in Fairford,Gloucestershire,where his father,also named John Keble,was vicar of Coln St. Aldwyns. He and his brother Thomas were educated at home by their father until each went to Oxford. In 1806,Keble won a scholarship to Corpus Christi College,Oxford. He excelled in his studies and in 1810 achieved double first-class honours in both Latin and mathematics. In 1811,he won the university prizes for both the English and Latin essays and became a fellow of Oriel College. He was for some years a tutor and examiner at the University of Oxford.[2]
While still at Oxford,he was ordained in 1816,[3] becoming a curate to his father and then curate of St Michael and St Martin's Church,Eastleach Martin,in Gloucestershire while still residing at Oxford. On the death of his mother in 1823,he left Oxford and returned to live with his father and two surviving sisters at Fairford.
Between 1824 and 1835,he was three times offered a position and each time declined on the grounds that he ought not separate himself from his father and only surviving sister. In 1828,he was nominated as provost of Oriel College but not elected.[2][4]
The Christian Year
Keble,c.1832
Meantime,he had been writing The Christian Year,a book of poems for the Sundays and feast days of the church year. It appeared in 1827 and was very effective in spreading Keble's devotional and theological views. It was intended as an aid to meditation and devotion following the services of the Prayer Book.[5] Though at first anonymous,its authorship soon became known,with Keble in 1831 appointed to the Chair of Poetry at Oxford,which he held until 1841. Victorian scholar Michael Wheeler calls The Christian Year simply "the most popular volume of verse in the nineteenth century".[6] In his essay on Tractarian Aesthetics and the Romantic Tradition,Gregory Goodwin claims that The Christian Year is "Keble's greatest contribution to the Oxford Movement and to English literature." As evidence,Goodwin cites E. B. Pusey's report that 95 editions of this devotional text were printed during Keble's lifetime,and "at the end of the year following his death,the number had arisen to a hundred-and-nine".
By the time that the copyright expired in 1873,over 375,000 copies had been sold in Britain and 158 editions had been published. Despite its widespread appeal among the Victorian readers and the familiarity of certain well-known hymns,the popularity of Keble's The Christian Year faded in the 20th century.
At Oxford,Keble met John Taylor Coleridge who introduced him to the writings not only of his uncle,Samuel Taylor Coleridge,but also of Wordsworth. He dedicated his Praelectiones to and greatly admired Wordsworth,who once offered to go over The Christian Year with a view to correcting the English.[7] To the same college friend,he was indebted for an introduction to Robert Southey,whom he found to be "a noble and delightful character," and the writings of the three,especially Wordsworth,had much to do with the formation of Keble's own mind as a poet.[2]
Tractarianism and vicar of Hursley
Keble,c.1860
Delivered on 14 July 1833,his famous Assize Sermon on "National Apostasy" gave the first impulse to the Oxford Movement,also known as the Tractarian movement. It marked the opening of a term of the civil and criminal courts and is officially addressed to the judges and officers of the court,exhorting them to deal justly.[3] Keble contributed seven pieces for Tracts for the Times,a series of short papers dealing with faith and practice. Along with his colleagues,including John Henry Newman and Edward Pusey,he became a leading light in the movement but did not follow Newman into the Roman Catholic Church.
In 1835,his father died,and Keble and his sister retired from Fairford to Coln. In the same year he married Charlotte Clarke,[8] and the vicarage of Hursley in Hampshire,becoming vacant,was offered to him;he accepted.[3] In 1836,he settled in Hursley and remained for the rest of his life as a parish priest at All Saints' Church. In 1841 his neighbour Charlotte Mary Yonge,a resident at Otterbourne House in the adjacent village of Otterbourne,where Keble was responsible for building a new church,compiled The Child's Christian Year:Hymns for every Sunday and Holy-Day to which Keble contributed four poems,including Bethlehem,above all cities blest.[2]
In 1857,he wrote one of his more important works,his treatise on Eucharistical Adoration,written in support of George Denison,who had been attacked for his views on the Eucharist.[5]
Other writings
In 1836,he published his edition of Hooker's Works. In 1838,he began to edit,in conjunction with Edward Bouverie Pusey and John Henry Newman,the Library of the Fathers. A volume of Academical and Occasional Sermons appeared in 1847.[2] Other works were a Life of Wilson,Bishop of Sodor and Man. After his death,Letters of Spiritual Counsel and 12 volumes of Parish Sermons were published.
Extracts from a number of his verses found their way into popular collections of Hymns for Public Worship,such as "The Voice that Breathed o'er Eden",[9] "Sun of my soul,Thou Saviour dear",[10]Blest are the pure in heart and New every morning is the love.
Lyra Innocentium was being composed while Keble was stricken by what he always seems to have regarded as the great sorrow of his life,the decision of Newman to leave the Church of England for Catholicism.[2]
Death
Keble died in Bournemouth on 29 March 1866 at the Hermitage Hotel,after visiting the area to try and recover from a long-term illness as he believed the sea air had therapeutic qualities. He is buried in All Saints' churchyard,Hursley.[11]
He was absolutely without ambition,with no care for the possession of power or influence,hating show and excitement,and distrustful of his own abilities.... Though shy and awkward with strangers,he was happy and at ease among his friends,and their love and sympathy drew out all his droll playfulness of wit and manner.... In personal appearance he was about middle height,with rather square and sloping shoulders,which made him look short until he pulled himself up,as he often did with 'sprightly dignity.' His head,says Mozley,'was one of the most beautifully formed heads in the world,' the face rather plain-featured,with a large unshapely mouth,but the whole redeemed by a bright smile which played naturally over the lips;and under a broad and smooth forehead he had 'clear,brilliant,penetrating eyes which lighted up quickly with merriment kindled into fire in a moment of indignation.... a quiet country clergyman,with a very moderate income,who sedulously avoided public distinctions,and held tenaciously to an unpopular School all his life.[5]
The view from Bulverton Hill,Sidmouth,where Keble was a frequent visitor,is thought to have inspired some of his best loved work. The hill commands a panoramic view of the Lower Otter Valley and Dartmoor in the distance. Folklore suggests that his favourite spot was where a wooden bench known as Keble's Seat has been in place for many years.
The 'Te Deum' window in the south-east transept of St Peter's Church,Bournemouth,was commissioned as a memorial to Keble,who had preferred to sit in the transept when worshipping at St Peter's daily in the last months of his life. Later,in 1906,the transept was re-configured as the Keble Chapel.[14]
Lives of Keble include one by John Taylor Coleridge (1869),who said,"The Christian Year is so wonderfully scriptural. Keble's mind was,by long,patient and affectionate study of Scripture,so imbued with it that its language,its train of thought,its mode of reasoning,seems to flow out into his poetry,almost,one should think,unconsciously to himself."[2] Another is by Walter Lock (1895). In 1963 Georgina Battiscombe wrote a biography titled John Keble:A Study in Limitations.
William Wordsworth was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication Lyrical Ballads (1798).
John Henry Newman was an English Catholic theologian, academic, philosopher, historian, writer, and poet. He was previously an Anglican priest and after his conversion became a cardinal. He was an important and controversial figure in the religious history of England in the 19th century and was known nationally by the mid-1830s. He was canonised as a Catholic saint in 2019. He was a member of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri.
Charlotte Mary Yonge was an English novelist, who wrote in the service of the church. Her abundant books helped to spread the influence of the Oxford Movement and showed her keen interest in matters of public health and sanitation.
Richard Mant was an English churchman who became a bishop in Ireland. He was a prolific writer, his major work being a History of the Church of Ireland.
Edward Bouverie Pusey was an English Anglican cleric, for more than fifty years Regius Professor of Hebrew at the University of Oxford. He was one of the leading figures in the Oxford Movement, with interest in sacramental theology and typology.
Renn Dickson Hampden was an English Anglican clergyman. His liberal tendencies led to conflict with traditionalist clergy in general and the supporters of Tractarianism during the years he taught at the University of Oxford (1829–1846) which coincided with a period of rapid social change and heightened political tensions.
Henry Parry Liddon (1829–1890), usually cited as H. P. Liddon, was an English Anglican theologian. From 1870 to 1882, he was Dean Ireland's Professor of the Exegesis of Holy Scripture at the University of Oxford.
The Oxford Movement was a movement of high church members of the Church of England which began in the 1830s and eventually developed into Anglo-Catholicism. The movement, whose original devotees were mostly associated with the University of Oxford, argued for the reinstatement of some older Christian traditions of faith and their inclusion into Anglican liturgy and theology. They thought of Anglicanism as one of three branches of the "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic" Christian church. Many key participants subsequently converted to Roman Catholicism.
Hursley is a village and civil parish in Hampshire, England with a population of around 900 in 2011. It is located roughly midway between Romsey and Winchester on the A3090. Besides the village the parish includes the hamlets of Standon and Pitt and the outlying settlement at Farley Chamberlayne.
Otterbourne is a village in Hampshire, England. It is located approximately four miles (6.4 km) south of Winchester and eight miles (13 km) north of Southampton. At the 2011 census, its population was 1,539, and there were 626 dwellings.
Richard Hurrell Froude was an Anglican priest and an early leader of the Oxford Movement.
George Anthony Denison (1805–1896) was an English Anglican priest. He served as Archdeacon of Taunton from 1851.
William Henry Sewell, English divine and author, helped to found two public schools along high church Anglican lines. A devout churchman, learned scholar and reforming schoolmaster, he was strongly influenced by the Tractarians.
Richard William Jelf was the fourth Principal of King's College, London.
The Reverend Isaac Williams (1802–1865) was a prominent member of the Oxford Movement, a student and disciple of John Keble and, like the other members of the movement, associated with Oxford University. A prolific writer, Williams wrote poetry and prose including the well known Tract: "On Reserve in Communicating Religious Knowledge".
Henry James Coleridge was a writer on religious affairs and preacher. He served as editor of The Month for over fifteen years.
Edward Hawkins was an English churchman and academic, a long-serving Provost of Oriel College, Oxford known as a committed opponent of the Oxford Movement from its beginnings in his college.
The Tracts for the Times were a series of 90 theological publications, varying in length from a few pages to book-length, produced by members of the English Oxford Movement, an Anglo-Catholic revival group, from 1833 to 1841. There were about a dozen authors, including Oxford Movement leaders John Keble, John Henry Newman and Edward Bouverie Pusey, with Newman taking the initiative in the series, and making the largest contribution. With the wide distribution associated with the tract form, and a price in pennies, the Tracts succeeded in drawing attention to the views of the Oxford Movement on points of doctrine, but also to its overall approach, to the extent that Tractarian became a synonym for supporter of the movement.
William Scott (1813–1872) was an English clergyman, a leading High Church figure of his time.
"National Apostasy" was a sermon preached by John Keble at the University Church of St Mary, Oxford, on 14 July 1833. The sermon has traditionally been considered as the beginning of the Oxford Movement of high church Anglicans, also known as the Tractarians.
↑ McQueen, Ian (1971). Bournemouth St. Peter's. Dorset Publishing Company.
Further reading
Blair, Kirstie, ed. (2004) John Keble in Context. London: Anthem ISBN1-84331146-1 (Papers from a conference held at Keble College, Oxford, May 2003.)
Cross, F. L., ed. (1957), The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, Oxford UP, p.761.
Hooker, Richard (1841) The Works of that Learned and Judicious Divine Mr. Richard Hooker: with an account of his life and death by Isaac Walton; Arranged by the Rev. John Keble, M.A. late Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, Professor of Poetry. 3 vols. Oxford: University Press
Keble, John (1912) Keble's Lectures on Poetry, 1832–1841; translated by Edward Kershaw Francis. (In: Aesthetics and Religion in Nineteenth-century Britain. ISBN1-85506964-4 (6 vols.)) Bristol: Thoemmes, 2003 (reprint of the 1912 edition)
Lott, Bernard Maurice (1960) The Poetry of John Keble, with special reference to the Christian Year and his contribution to the Lyra Apostolica. Thesis (PhD)—University of London, 1960
Rowlands, John Henry Lewis (1989). Church, State, and Society, 1827–1845: the Attitudes of John Keble, Richard Hurrell Froude, and John Henry Newman. Worthing, Eng.: P. Smith [of] Churchman Publishing; Folkestone, Eng.: distr. …by Bailey Book Distribution. ISBN1-85093-132-1
Woods, Mark Robert (1987) John Keble's Theory of Poetry and its Sources. Thesis (M.Litt.) – University of Bristol, 1987.
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