DANIEL BROWN"The doctors found out... could not live ... - so Bunbury died," 16
Lucifer is discovered by science to be a myth and forced to revert to being
the natural phenomenon that gave rise to it. He resumes his humble part
within "The army of unalterable law." Like the "Red Sails in the Sunset" of
the old song, "Lucifer in Starlight" becomes barely perceptible, submerged
in the indirect light that it reflects and shares with other celestial bodies.
Meredith's witty poem can be read as an unobjectionable instance of
biblical criticism. Just as the science of Lyell and his peers broke from the
guiding principles of natural theology to explain natural phenomena
exclusively by terrestrial laws, so biblical criticism similarly approached the
Bible rationally and naturalistically, as Robert Browning put it in
"Christmas-Eve" (1850), "To sift the truth of it from fable" (RB 931). Each
refuses to credit the supernaturalism that traditionally provided the premise
for studies of the twin books of Nature and Revelation. Although biblical
criticism has its roots in the Enlightenment, its most momentous statement
comes in 1835 and 1836, with the publication in Germany of David
Friedrich Strauss's two-volume Life of Jesus. Strauss uses the category of
myth to explain Biblical accounts of miracles and other phenomena that he
judges to be inconsistent with the universals governing experience, such as
the laws of cause and effect. Thus miracles are regarded as the culturally
specific ways in which religious ideas are imaginatively expressed. They are
stories that belong to the folklore of their time and place. Biblical criticism
came to public attention in Britain with the publication of George Eliot's
translation of Strauss's Life in 1846. Meredith's treatment of the Lucifer
myth is a whimsical afterthought to the devastating impact of biblical
criticism in England during the middle years of the century.
Browning's "Christmas-Eve" features a representative "Critic" of the
Bible lecturing on the Straussian theme of the "Myth of Christ" (RB 859).
The persona of the poem marks Christmas Eve by attending several church
services. He begins in the chapel of some Dissenters. In the nineteenth
century, the Dissenters were largely synonymous with the Evangelical
movement, which by insisting upon very literal readings of the Bible as the
basis of faith and the guide to conduct are dramatically opposed to the
liberalism of the biblical critics. Similarly, the simplicity of the Dissenters'
practices of worship contrasts starkly with the elaborate rituals of Roman
Catholicism, the other type of Christianity represented in Browning's
poem. After leaving the Dissenters' service, Browning's persona proceeds,
with God as his silent guide (and mode of transport), to St Peter's in
Rome, before reaching the door of the German lecture theatre where the
biblical critic delivers his address. Browning's speaker then takes stock of
all that he has seen that night, drawing upon science for a metaphor to
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