Christianity and Religion

in Marguerite Young's Magnum Opus

De: Coral Russell

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

Marguerite Young had a complex and non-traditional view of religion that heavily influenced her writing. As a descendant of both Mormon leader Brigham Young and Protestant reformer John Knox, she was interested in utopian societies and used religious imagery to explore themes of illusion, reality, and mythology.

She was a descendant of two very different religious figures: Brigham Young, the leader of the Latter-day Saint movement, and John Knox, a key figure in the Scottish Reformation. Her maternal grandmother, who raised Young, experienced delusions (she suffered from a stroke) that included "angels and other such creatures." This exposure to what Young considered the fantastic and supernatural had a lasting impact on her literary themes.

Angel in the Forest: A Fairy Tale of Two Utopias (1945), explores the history of the Rappist and Owenite societies in New Harmony, Indiana. Young's deep research into these religious and social experiments reflects her fascination with utopian quests and quests for truth.

Miss MacIntosh, My Darling (1965) is a mythological journey exploring the nature of illusion and reality. The protagonist searches for her Christian nursemaid, who represents reality, but ends the quest by accepting that life is filled with ambivalence.

Harp Song for a Radical (1999) is her biography of socialist Eugene V. Debs. Young connected his radical labor movement with the communal, mutual-assistance principles of 19th-century utopian communities, including the Mormons and Shakers.

The Complete Poems of Marguerite Young (2022) would also need a deep analysis in order to determine her expression of spirituality and religion in her earliest works.

Instead of having a deep, personal affection for the natural world, Young valued nature for its symbolic meaning. She used "birds and beasts" to represent human characteristics and cosmic ideas, a technique she explored in her master's thesis on Elizabethan and Jacobean literature.

In a Paris Review interview, Young stated that her spirituality was "always poetic and cosmic." She recalled being taught as a child to ask angels for help and to cast away Satan, shaping her early relationship with the unearthly.

In this book we will be taking a closer look and pulling out all the references to Christianity and other religions and beliefs mentioned in the novel in order to do an in-depth exploration of Young’s views and ultimately her take on Christianity and Religion.