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'Vain are the thousand creeds' : Wuthering Heights, the Bible and liberal protestantism.

Research output: Contribution to Journal/MagazineJournal articlepeer-review

Published
<mark>Journal publication date</mark>09/2006
<mark>Journal</mark>Literature and Theology
Issue number3
Volume20
Number of pages15
Pages (from-to)236-250
Publication StatusPublished
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

This essay reconsiders Emily Brontë's place within the theological history of the early nineteenth century. I argue that there is a complex system of biblical hermeneutics embedded within the narrative of Wuthering Heights. In the first part of the essay, I locate Brontë within the key theological and denominational contexts of her family life. In the second part, I offer a comparative reading of Wuthering Heights and Friedrich Schleiermacher's The Christian Faith and argue that Brontë's use of the Bible is founded upon a liberal hermeneutics that privileges personal, intuitive experience of the divine over traditional canonical authority.