Introduction

W. Cowper claims to have been 'hunted' into this 'business' by divine 'force', with no prospect of achieving any 'fame and honour and glory'. It is in the image of Cowper as the storm-beset 'Christian mariner' that we can espy an especially deliberate attempt to target J. Newton's evangelical sympathies, given how central this concept is to Newton's own authentic religious identity, wrought through conversion. In Newton's spiritual autobiography, An Authentic Narrative, we find an exemplary description of God's mercy and salvation, with all of its 'remarkable and interesting particulars'. In Cowper's Book V of The Task, poetry brings to life theology both as 'a way of feeling' and as an authentic 'language of the self' through what Brian Cummings has termed conversion's 'habits of syntax'. Yet in spite of this spiritual conundrum —or perhaps even because of it —The Task might still be considered Cowper's most authentic version of spiritual autobiography.