Puritanism and Modernist Novels: From Moral Character to the Ethical Self by Lynn W. Hinojosa (review)

Puritanism, in its exaltation of the communal and the divine, and modernism, in its unabashed celebration of secular individualism, appear to be mutually exclusive terms. Lynn W. Hinojosa’s monumental achievement in Puritanism and Modernist Novels: From Moral Character to the Ethical Self is her insightful ability to connect these two seemingly diametrically opposing ideologies. As she argues, “the novel—even the modernist novel—cannot escape dealing with the biblical narrative and Christianity at some level … because Puritan hermeneutics is bound up in its very form and content” (30). Hinojosa contends that a deeper understanding of the complex ways in which Puritans approached and assimilated scripture (which she refers to as Puritan hermeneutics) can “enhance our understanding of both the novel and modernism” (19). Similarly, “examining modernist novels can enhance our understanding of Puritanism’s influence on the British literary tradition, social morality, and views of the self in modernity” (19). The modern novel, she suggests, “is simultaneously shaped by Puritanism while attempting to escape Puritanism” (14), and therein lies the tension.

Hinojosa begins by offering a new context for thinking about Puritanism, which consists of Puritan groups and cultures, socially constructed ideas of Victorian Puritanism (which were in part shaped and perpetuated by the early novel), and, generally speaking, Christianity. “Modernism,” she writes, “in many ways develops as a reaction against ‘Puritanism,’” and yet, even today, “remnants of Puritanism and morality have never disappeared and continue to remain embedded in novels, society, and our views of ourselves and others” (6, 10). That said, Puritanism must be understood as a socially constructed moral reality rather than simply a particular set of religious beliefs. Indeed, modernism’s emphasis on individualistic experience was greatly at odds with the communal self that is central to Puritanism. One of twentieth century’s most significant contributions to a modern (and, for that matter, even a postmodern) understanding of human experience is the way in which modernist writers challenged and broke with the conventions of long-established social moral values and replaced them with a more individualistic and pluralistic personal ethics. Readings of modernist novels are enhanced when explored in light of this transformation.

Hinojosa’s text is divided into two parts: in “Theory and Context,” she establishes the theoretical and cultural framework for her argument, while in “Puritanism in Four Early Novels” she offers careful, innovative readings of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, E. M. Forster’s A Room with a View, James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and Ford Madox Ford’s The Good Soldier.¹ This structural approach showcases Hinojosa’s venerable talents as a cultural historian and as a literary critic. Her expansive knowledge of both Puritan/Christian culture and modern ideology is matched only by her impressive skills in offering insightful and original readings of the four novels mentioned above.

Puritanism’s vast legacy acts as the bridge that Hinojosa uses to connect theory and textual application. This transition is not only seamless but, in Hinojosa’s capable hands, seemingly inevitable. It should be noted, though, that what she proposes is a reading of these works and certainly not the reading. As she points out, the influences on the modern novel are many. Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray serves as a perfect example of the conflict between the moral and the ethical, and she argues that the novel is “fundamentally interested in the same things as Puritan hermeneutics is: the moral formation that might occur while reading, the aesthetic (or spiritual or ‘ethical’) experience of reading, and the relationship between the two” (85). The two Dorians in the novel—the artistic construct and the real one—represent aspects of his aesthetic (ethical) self and his moral self. From this perspective, Wilde’s novel acts as a parable for the modern human condition.

Of particular interest to Joyceans, certainly, will...