ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines a brief history of hymn culture together with some of the features of the genre, and introduces the ways in which ‘hymn’ is discussed in this book, in relation to Dickinson’s engagement with it. The term ‘hymn culture’ is used here with reference to the tradition of writing, editing and compiling hymns and also the practical experience of hymns; singing, sharing and using them as points of reference in every day life. It also refers to the various conventions hymns follow, such as hierarchical address, teleological narrative and particular imagery. ‘Hymn culture’ also encompasses the rationale and specific ideas about social cohesion that such conventions produce, and the various effects those ideas have upon the editorial choices made during the compiling of hymnals. Hymns are ideally relational because they invoke the individual’s communion with God and also the congregation, that is, a diverse relation in unity. However, the hierarchical model of relation commonly found in hymn address (‘I-Thou’) reflects thinking on the divine which is inherently oppositional. The representation of spiritual experience to be found in the poems and hymns examined in this book present a negotiation of, and alternative to, such oppositional conceptions of the divine.
