James Hervey

Eric Parisot (Flinders University)

Ed. by Daniel Cook, University of Dundee
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.05: English Writing and Culture from the Glorious Revolution to the French Revolution, 1689-1789.
Vol. editors: Paul Baines (University of Liverpool), Daniel Cook (University of Dundee), Pat Rogers (University of South Florida), Nicholas Seager (University of Keele)

Dates

Born 26 Feb 1714
Died 25 Dec 1758
Activity 1734-1758

Places

Born in England
Active in England

Activities

Primary

Poet

Resources

Hervey's Works

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James Hervey (1714-1758) was a Church of England minister and writer, whose

Meditations among the Tombs

(1746) is now most notably recognised as a prose counterpart to contemporaneous “graveyard poetry” and for its proto-Gothic aesthetics. Educated at Oxford (and later in life at Cambridge), Hervey joined the Oxford Methodists under the influence of John Wesley in 1733, and was well acquainted with prominent evangelical clergymen such as George Whitefield, Isaac Watts and Philip Doddridge for much of his life. Describing himself as a “moderate

Calvinist

” (Hervey, 1760, 2:91), Hervey’s religious life was imbued with a devotion to the gospel, the renunciation of earthly things, and the necessity of faith, but it is the combination of this theology with a highly-affected writing…

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552 words

Citation: Parisot, Eric. "James Hervey". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 15 February 2017 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2112, accessed 24 November 2024.]

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