19 pages • 38 minutes read
Light Shining Out of Darkness
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Background
Authorial Context
While readers should always be wary not to confuse the speaker of a poem with the author themself, it is probable that life events and other details from an author’s life will have an influence and provide some form of inspiration for their work. Therefore, looking at a work from a biographical context can prove beneficial to more fully comprehending a text. In the case of Cowper, the religious influence found in his hymn “Light Shining Out of Darkness” can be traced back to his childhood. Throughout his entire life, Cowper maintained associations and friendships with ministers and other religious individuals. Cowper’s father was an Anglican minister, so Cowper’s interaction with religious institutions began at birth. After his mental breakdown and during his stay at Nathaniel Cotton’s Collegium Insanorum, Cowper converted to the Evangelical tradition. Later in his life, during his relationship with the Unwins and with John Newton, he encountered the Calvinist tradition. His interactions with all of these denominations coincided with his deteriorating mental state. As a child he experienced the death of his mother and relentless bullying at school. The prospect of being publicly examined for his clerkship position sent Cowper to the asylum, and the engagement to Mary Unwin further spiraled Cowper’s mental state, resulting in depression. Cowper’s mental health issues also affected his spiritual beliefs. As he battled melancholy and depression, he questioned salvation and damnation, and in essence, humankind’s relationship with God.
These mental and spiritual efforts parallel those expressed in Cowper’s hymn “Light Shining Out of Darkness.” Written in 1773 and published initially in 1774, Cowper’s poem was produced later in life, after he had already gone through a number of his tribulations. From this authorial perspective, readers (or listeners/singers) can almost hear Cowper’s voice trying to pacify his internal struggles with the notion that “God is his own interpreter” (Line 23). The need to explain God’s “mysterious” (Line 1) nature as darkness or bitterness hiding a more benevolent and merciful disposition could be read alongside Cowper’s desire to explain his own suffering. Cowper could be looking for an explanation for his own mental and spiritual trials, and the messages in the hymn are his means of doing so. Why do the good and innocent suffer? Because God has something more in store for them, a purpose that will eventually be made clear. Cowper’s texts “mark the rise of the modern existentialist hero who must continuously create value and stability for himself against a background of cultural dissolution and the threat of chaos within” (“William Cowper.” Poetry Foundation. Accessed 4 Sept. 2021.). Cowper’s hymn analyzed in this study guide encapsulates this inner struggle shared amongst humankind.
Socio-Historical Context
In order to understand the socio-historical context of politics and religion in which Cowper lived, readers must go back to the Restoration. After Charles I was beheaded and Parliament assumed control of British rule in 1649, civil war erupted across England. This war between the Parliamentarians and Royalists ended with the Restoration in 1660, when Charles II was invited to take his father’s throne. Politics and religion were inextricably intertwined at this point. As the Norton Anthology explains, “The restoration of the monarchy meant that the established church would also be restored, and though Charles was willing to pardon or ignore many former enemies (such as Milton), the bishops and Anglican clergy were less tolerant of dissent” (The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Edited by Stephen Greenblatt, vol. I, 8th ed., W.W. Norton & Company, 2006, p. 2058.). This reinstitution of the traditional Anglican faith was upheld by various political acts, such as the Test Act in 1673. Nonconformists, Dissenters, and Catholics were discriminated against for their lack of adherence to the Church of England. The Popish Plot, in which Catholic conspirators murdered Protestants, is one such example of the Anglican church’s fears taken to the extreme.
When Charles II’s brother, James II, succeeded to the throne in 1685, his Catholic faith was not met in the most welcoming manner, which initiated the Glorious Revolution and the instating of William of Orange and his wife (James’s daughter Mary) on the throne in 1688. This Bloodless Revolution divided the nation yet again, between those who supported James’s true claim to the throne (Jacobites) and those who supported William and Mary. A significant religious and political act came in 1689 with the Toleration Act, which “relaxed the strain of religious conflict by granting a limited freedom of worship to Dissenters (although not to Catholics or Jews) so long as they swore allegiance to the Crown” (The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Edited by Stephen Greenblatt, vol. I, 8th ed., W.W. Norton & Company, 2006, p. 2059.).
William and Mary had no children of their own, so the throne fell to James’s daughter Anne. Anne was a staunch supporter of the Anglican Church throughout her reign. From a political perspective, throughout the 18th century, Whigs tended to support a more liberal religious tolerance, while the Tory party promoted the traditional church (The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Edited by Stephen Greenblatt, vol. I, 8th ed., W.W. Norton & Company, 2006, p. 2060.). This brief overview of religious history in England during the Restoration and into the 18th century frames Cowper’s experiences. Though born to an Anglican minister father, his early education at school with Whig inclinations explains Cowper’s more liberal view of religion and acceptance of various religious denominations. This more liberal view and Cowper’s eventual Evangelical conversion explain the focus on individual religious experience highlighted and promoted in his hymn “Light Shining Out of Darkness.” Each of God’s “fearful saints” (Line 9) must reach their own acceptance of God’s mysteries and wonder.
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