Marvell the Puritan Freethinker or Deist?

• In Event: Marvell III: Marvell and Religion

Abstract

Marvell’s contemporary James Yonge described him "as a man not well affected to the Church" – an opinion that has held sway with modern commentators. John Spurr sees Marvell as a puritan who "wants to roll all this back [institutional Christianity] and replace it with the Christian alone with his or her Bible," a view heavily influenced by Pierre Legouis’s 1928 characterisation of Marvell as a deistic kind of "puritaine." Though justifiable to an extent, this paper will argue such descriptions of Marvell’s writing ignore other aspects of his religious commitments. The idea of imparting suitable religious instruction and exhortation by example was one Marvell would return to repeatedly: this fundamental importance attached to the clergy renders it unlikely that Marvell fully subscribed to laicization of religion. If we are to think of Marvell as a puritan freethinker, or even a deist, then how do we reconcile this understanding with evidence of Marvell’s religious conformity?

Author

• Stephanie Coster, University of Leicester