ABSTRACT
The Romantic spirit pervaded western society and culture for many years, the climax of its impact being aligned traditionally and narrowly with the generation of Romantic poets between approximately 1790 and 1830. However, Margaret Drabble expands the Romantic literary movement to encompass the years between 1770 and 1884 1 and David Bebbington suggests that the influence of the Romantic mood may have extended beyond the end of the nineteenth century. 2 This book assumes that the influence of the Romantic spirit extended well beyond 1830 and certainly encompassed the years down to 1880. It further supposes that any influence was not limited to the life spans of the Romantic artists but had a delayed, trickle-down effect that was manifested to varying degrees with the passing years. Writers, musicians, painters and architects all reflected the passion and imagination of Romanticism. However, examples portraying the Romantic spirit will be taken primarily from works of prose and poetry since the source material for Nonconformist death, obituaries, is also a form of literature. This chapter will examine the extent to which Romanticism may have affected evangelical Nonconformist beliefs about death and the afterlife, how that influence can be traced in the Nonconformist obituaries and how it changed between 1830 and 1880.
