Search results for ""author s.w. jackman""

The strongest voices in Christian history regarding the place of women in religious and secular society gave them only a very limited role, but there have always been those who disagreed with that view and with much other church orthodoxy. Often reviled by the Church, many of these women nevertheless had significant influence in their times. Some of them were considered to be heretics - unsurprisingly since they made great claims for themselves and their written and spoken words: Maximilla, a Montanist, announced that 'After me there will be no further prophets', while Joanna Southcott later claimed to be 'The Greatest Prophet that ever came into the world'. As this demonstrates, they did not speak with a single voice, but included Montanists, Jansenists, Pelagians, Antinomians, Spiritualists and Theosophists as well as Saints. This book describes the lives of twelve such women, outlining their beliefs, their attempts to make themselves heard, their clashes with the spiritual authorities, the influence they achieved and the legacies they left behind: Elizabeth Barton, Teresa Sanchez de Cepeda y Ahumad, Jeanne Marie Guyon, Selina, Countess of Huntingdon, Ann Lee, Joanna Southcott, Barbara Juliana, Baroness De Krudener, Lydia Sellon, Mary Baker Eddy, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Ethel Cecilia Dodd, Aimee Semple Macpherson. Some of these women saw themselves as reformers, others as revolutionaries; some saw their mission as lying within the Church, others broke with established religion completely. What they had in common was that each of them had a vision, some literally, others in a more figurative sense. None of them had any doubts as to the rightness of the mission to which they were called. While some of the opprobrium that they attracted from the ecclesiastical authorities related to their heterodox opinions, it is clear that had they been men their ideas might well have found more support and their activities greater approbation. Everyone who has an interest in Christian history and in women in the church - as well as in menís reaction to them - will want to read this book.

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Dare to overturn preconceptions about the nineteenth-century arts with this fascinating work. Two assumptions are often made about the arts of the 19th century; firstly, that urban centres of the 19th century are where the arts flourished and 'provincial' centres were rather more inferior in their contributions to art, music and literature; and secondly, that women played a lesser role in their contribution to the arts. It is two such notions, which S.W. Jackman challenges in his highly detailed study of a range of Irish nineteenth-century women writers. Through eight far-reaching, biographical sketches of prominent Irish women writers, the author demonstrates that 'provincial' prose and poetry was not of lower status, but simply different. As the reader discovers the backgrounds to writers, such as: the 'doyenne,' Maria Edgeworth; Sidney Morgan; Marguerite Blessington; Helen Dufferin; Caroline Norton; Speranza Wilde; Augusta Gregory and Edith Somerville, so it becomes clear that 19th century literature knew no sexual or geographical boundaries. This well-researched study portrays above all how the writers' contributions appealed very highly to the romantic Victorian spirit and helped greatly in shaping Western culture. 'Literature was a lady-like pursuit even if pecuniary motives were paramount, and a woman did not lose caste by writing fiction.' Extract from Maria Edgeworth.

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