The use of biblical figures as symbols within Victorian novels was, in part, indebted to the popularity of typology within nineteenth-century hermeneutic practice. In
his work Victorian Types, Victorian Shadows, George P. Landow argues that biblical typology had a “pervasive influence upon Victorian culture.”48 Throughout his work he argues that typology not only shaped the interpretative method Victorians applied to the Bible but that it was ultimately used within secular discourse to create more in-depth meaning or give authority to particular beliefs. The distinguishing factor in the Victorian use of typology that encouraged the use of typology in secular discourse, such as
literature and art, according to Landow, was the “widespread belief that scriptural types could be fulfilled in the individual’s own life.”49 Thus, typology in the nineteenth century was increasingly used as a means of self-interpretation rather than Christological
interpretation.
Victorian typology diverged from the traditional Christological typology that had been used throughout the Church’s history in two key areas. First, Victorians understood types as establishing behavioral and theological norms for contemporary society and culture—in that the biblical text set a typological precedent that was fulfilled within successive eras. Where traditionally Christian typology had been applied to the Hebrew scriptures to interpret how certain events or figures point forward toward their fulfillment through New Testament types such as Christ or the Church, Victorians saw contemporary events as pointing back toward scripture. Interpreting the present as if it fulfilled biblical narratives encouraged individuals to intentionally pattern their own life or view of current events after specific biblical texts, creating a sort of self-fulfilling typology.50 Second,
48 George P. Landow. Victorian Types, Victorian Shadows: Biblical Typology in Victorian Literature, Art, and Thought. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980, 12.
49 Ibid, 50.
50 Landow distinguishes between the different uses of typology by labeling one Christian typology, where the “lesser anticipates the greater,” and the other secular typology, where a writer “pattern[s] a later character up on—literally ‘after’—some great figure who precedes him.” (Victorian Types, Victorian Shadows: Biblical Typology in Victorian Literature, Art, and Thought, 108.) Earl Miner describes this
typology in the Victorian age tended to be used as a means of self-interpretation rather than as a means of formulating a theological understanding of Christ. In both of these aspects, Victorian typology became increasingly used to interpret individual, embodied experience through the lens of biblical events or figures.
This method of self-interpretation was at the core of the Victorian hermeneutic method. Several popular genres in the Victorian age—autobiography, biography, diaries, and, not least, the novel—frequently utilized typology in order to encourage introspection and self-interpretation, often with the goal that the scriptural type might also become fulfilled in the reader’s life as well.51 In using character or narrative typology within their novels, Victorian authors were providing the reader with a framework from which to interpret and understand their fictional worlds while at the same time offering an interpretation of the biblical text. This use of typology ultimately encouraged readers to understand themselves as biblical types and figures. Fictionalized works were understood to be “the self-history of the narrator,”52 a point particularly emphasized in the full title of Charlotte Brontë’s popular work, Jane Eyre: an Autobiography, which intentionally blurred the lines between history and fiction.
If typology provided a structure to interpret a fictional character’s history, biblical figures could likewise be used as a means of self-interpretation. It is this hermeneutic use
reversed chronology use of typology as “retrospective typology.” To this, Miner also adds the categories of
“strict typology” and “loose typology” to describe the range of typological interpretation found in literature.
(“Afterward.” Literary Uses of Typology from the Late Middle Ages to the Present. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1977, 370-394, 378-379.) The point here is not to get lost in exact terms for typological usage within fictional texts but rather to acknowledge the way typology was used for a variety of purposes in nineteenth-century interpretation.
51 For more information on the use of typology in various Victorian genres see: Linda H. Peterson.
Victorian Autobiography: the Tradition of Self-Interpretation. New Haven: Yale UP, 1986, 22; and Elisabeth Jay. The Religion of the Heart: Anglican Evangelicalism and the Nineteenth-Century Novel, 152-153.
52 Landow. Victorian Types, Victorian Shadows: Biblical Typology in Victorian Literature, Art, and Thought, 12.
of typology to appropriate narratives as a method of self-interpretation that enabled the Victorian adaptation of biblical characters and narratives within the novel to go beyond the use of mere intertextuality within fictional works. This was not always the case, however, as sometimes typology simply served to help authors create character and narrative types; that is, authors would borrow from a biblical story or figure in order to create the structure for the characters and narratives within their fictional works. One subtle character type can be found in Mary Augusta Ward’s novel Robert Elsmere, where early on the protagonist’s wife Catherine is modeled as a type of Deborah. 53 Thus, with little exposition, Ward structures her character after the Old Testament prophetess and judge, alluding to her role in the story as a righteous woman and spiritual leader.
On the other hand, Victorian authors would also use typology as a means of re-visioning the biblical narrative while at the same time developing a complex interpretive device for their character. Thomas Hardy borrows from aspects of the early Genesis narratives within his novel Tess of the d’Urbervilles, recreating a new Eve figure through his protagonist. Echoes from Genesis are heard throughout the novel. The ‘Chase scene,’ in which Tess is presumably raped by Alec, carries several parallels to the Fall myth. Hardy uses primordial language in his descriptions of the scene. The secluded area is, “the oldest wood in England,”54 isolated from the rest of the world both by distance and fog, and enveloped by “primeval yews and oaks.” 55 There in the woods, alone, walk a man and woman. Despite the possible romantic connotations of the scene, the episode recounts a departure from innocence. Tess and Alec are surrounded by an idyllic location, yet the man falls into temptation and the woman into ruin. The Chase
53 Mary Augusta Ward. Robert Elsmere, 27. See also Judges 4-5.
54 Thomas Hardy. Tess of the D’Urbervilles: a Pure Woman. New York: Modern Library, 1951, 87.
55 Ibid, 90.
scene marks the end of the first phase of the novel, entitled “The Maiden” and introduces the second phase called “Maiden No More.” Hardy’s description of the rape is subtle, but as Tess is violated, he rhetorically asks where Tess’s guardian angel or God is at the time. Not surprisingly, they are absent from the scene. A few weeks after the incident, Hardy describes a walk Tess is taking, “It was always beautiful from here; it was terribly beautiful to Tess to-day, for since her eyes last fell upon it she had learnt that the serpent hisses where the sweet birds sing, and her views of life had been totally changed for her by the lesson.”56 The Fall has taken place and it is not possible to go back to the former idyll. Tess explains to Alec that she “didn’t understand your meaning till it was too late.”
Alec replies that she is using a typical woman’s excuse, but eventually admits that he did wrong to her. As she walks away she comes across a man painting judgments from scripture that horrifyingly accuse Tess of her ‘sin.’ It reads, “THY, DAMNATION, SLUMBERETH, NOT. 2 PET. ii.3.” along with an unfinished command, “THY,
SHALT, NOT, COMMIT— ” Tess nervously asks the man, “Suppose your sin was not of your own seeking?” His answer is inconclusive, so Tess walks away murmuring,
“Pooh—I don’t believe God said such things!” The whole scene echoes aspects of the Genesis story: the punishment the serpent brought upon earth, Adam first placing the blame of his actions on the woman, God’s commands to humanity, Eve’s temptation to disobey without seeking to sin, and the serpent questioning the validity of what the humans thought God had said.
Tess’s role as a fallen Eve figure is further emphasized in another reworked Garden scene—this time documenting another type of fall: falling in love with Angel Clare. The scene begins with Tess walking alone in the garden on a typical summer evening. Again,
56 Ibid, 96.
Hardy presents an earthy, sensual paradise. Tess walks on the outskirts of the garden which “had been left uncultivated for some years, and was now damp and rank with juicy grass which sent up mists of pollen at a touch…[and] weeds whose red and yellow and purple hues formed a polychrome as dazzling as that of cultivated flowers.”57 Angel sits in the garden playing a simple melody on a harp, as Tess goes through the garden, gazing on the last glimpse of sun and the first twinkling of stars. Angel approaches Tess,
coming up behind her stealthily. Tess reacts with burning cheeks, jumping slightly away from him. They speak for a short while and so begins their romance. Hardy uses the next several pages to describe their developing relationship. Tess and Angel get in the habit of meeting together alone in the mornings before anyone else is awake. Their morning meetings are depicted as Edenic, “The spectral, half-compounded, aqueous light which pervaded the open mead impressed them with a feeling of isolation, as if they were Adam and Eve.”58 The reference to this couple is made again when Angel returns from a long break, explaining to Tess he hastened back because of her. Tess responds by,
“[regarding] him as Eve at her second waking might have regarded Adam.”59 It is unclear whether Hardy uses the phrase “second waking” here to refer to Eve before or after the Fall. Nonetheless, these allusions both look back and foreshadow Tess’s falls while simultaneously emphasizing her innate innocence, similar to the beauty of nature as even the weeds take on the beauty of flowers.
Ultimately Hardy’s re-visioning of Eve through his character Tess not only provides a new interpretation of the Creation narratives, but also provides his readers with a new language with which to appropriate the symbol of Eve within their own lives.
57 Ibid, 158.
58 Ibid, 167.
59 Ibid, 218.
However, this use of typology through characters within the novel was not limited to biblical symbols. As typology was increasingly used as a means of self-interpretation rather than for a theological understanding of Christology, it became less important for typological understandings to rely on scripture at all. George Eliot, in particular, frequently employed the use of hagiography as a way of formulating a typological
understanding of her characters. Dorothea Brooks in Middlemarch stands as a particularly striking use of such hagiographic typology. In the Prelude, Eliot relies on the life of Saint Theresa of Avila to emphasize the many unknown Theresas whose lackluster lives do not involve one crucial action but rather exist as women who disjointedly seek after some
“unattained goodness.”60 The last paragraphs of the novel repeat the analogy to Theresa, praising Dorothea for her faithfulness in pursuing good as “the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts.”61 The allusion to Saint Theresa is not the only use of typology in the novel; Dorothea is also related to biblical characters such as the Blessed Virgin Mary, Sara, and Dorcas along with other saints from throughout the history of the Church including Santa Clara and Saint Catherine.62 Eliot used these figures in her novel in order to demonstrate how individual women could embody the narratives and character traits of these saints. That Dorothea, along with many other female characters within Eliot’s novels, could be understood through the typology of so many different figures highlights the potentially diverse meanings that these symbols have when interpreted
60 George Eliot. Middlemarch, xiv.
61 Ibid, 578.
62 Eliot also uses Saint Catherine of Alexandria typologically within Adam Bede to refer to Dinah Morris (57). In her notebook for Adam Bede, Eliot described Saint Catherine as “beautiful, learned, and with oratorical skills, who steadfastly refused to marry, recognizing Christ alone as her spouse.” (Carol Martin.
“Explanatory Notes” Adam Bede. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2001,508.) Dinah shared similar traits.
through one’s individual experience. The narratives themselves became multi-faceted and complex when interpreted in light of such varied experience.
Borrowing from such symbols to create fictional characters not only reinterprets the myths of figures such as Saint Theresa but also gives readers, particularly female readers, a means of self-interpretation through these re-visioned narratives. At the same time, authors were reinterpreting these ancient myths through their own embodied experience, breathing new life into the figures and allowing them to become a true history within their own lives, their characters, and the lives of their readers. Ultimately this enabled women to take symbols which had often led to negative interpretations of womanhood by theologians throughout the history of the Church to be understood in more positive ways. Furthermore, because of the nature of the fictional text and the nineteenth-century hermeneutic of embodiment, Victorian women were empowered by these re-visioned female saints within the novel to give new meaning to biblical symbols in a way that reflected their own experience as women.