Special Studies in the 18th Century: Psalms, Congregational Hymns, Criticism

This course focuses on the texts that were the most widely circulated literary forms of the eighteenth century, the Psalms of the Hebrew Bible, and their adaptation in the eighteenth century into congregational hymns (hymns meant to be sung by an entire congregation and not just by choristers or soloists). We read hymns by Isaac Watts, John Newton, William Cowper, and Anna Letitia Barbauld, and look at some contemporary criticism (by Robert Lowth and Joseph Priestley) to think about how the diffusion of Psalm-based hymns across large groups intersected with and contributed to the development of literary criticism.