Religion and Atheism

The video focuses this large topic round a relatively few well-known literary writers. The established Church of England, central in Jane Austen’s novels, may not have been over-concerned about doctrine, but people who did included Calvinists both within and outside the established churches of England and Scotland. Dissenters outside the Church also included the Unitarians who influenced Coleridge for a period, and more fringe groups like the Swedenborgians who influenced Blake. The use of non-Christian mythologies to question Christianity is also considered, and Shelley’s outspoken atheism is related to the frequent imprisonments of the lower-class atheist publisher Richard Carlile.