Peculiar Life of Sundays
Stephen Miller
(Author)
21,000+ Reviews
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Description
Sunday observance in the Christian West was an important religious issue from late Antiquity until at least the early twentieth century. In England the subject was debated in Parliament for six centuries. During the reign of Charles I disagreements about Sunday observance were a factor in the Puritan flight from England. In America the Sunday question loomed large in the nation's newspapers. In the nineteenth century, it was the lengthiest of our national debates--outlasting those of temperance and slavery. In a more secular age, many writers have been haunted by the afterlife of Sunday. Wallace Stevens speaks of the "peculiar life of Sundays." For Kris Kristofferson "there's something in a Sunday, / Makes a body feel alone."
From Augustine to Caesarius, through the Reformation and the Puritan flight from England, down through the ages to contemporary debates about Sunday worship, Stephen Miller explores the fascinating history of the Sabbath. He pays particular attention to the Sunday lives of a number of prominent British and American writers--and what they have had to say about Sunday. Miller examines such observant Christians as George Herbert, Samuel Johnson, Edmund Burke, Hannah More, and Jonathan Edwards. He also looks at the Sunday lives of non-practicing Christians, including Oliver Goldsmith, Joshua Reynolds, John Ruskin, and Robert Lowell, as well as a group of lapsed Christians, among them Edmund Gosse, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Thoreau, and Wallace Stevens. Finally, he examines Walt Whitman's complex relationship to Christianity. The result is a compelling study of the changing role of religion in Western culture.Product Details
Price
$50.40
Publisher
Harvard University Press
Publish Date
November 01, 2008
Pages
320
Dimensions
5.76 X 8.44 X 1.03 inches | 1.05 pounds
Language
English
Type
Hardcover
EAN/UPC
9780674031685
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About the Author
Stephen Miller is the author of the bestselling book Conversation: A History of a Declining Art.
Reviews
This wide-ranging study of the most singular day of the week--as it has played out over the centuries from antiquity to the present--will delight and inform readers. I found it beguiling in every way. Miller writes beautifully, drawing on a wealth of material, shaping his ideas and arguments with nothing short of amazing grace.--Jay Parini, Middlebury College
A fascinating cultural history of Sunday that draws on some of our best-known writers and public figures. Fluently written, vastly enjoyable, both instructive and diverting.--David Mikics, University of Houston
[A] lively history of a day that has exercised a peculiar hold on countless human beings for the past 2,000 years.--Jay Tolson "Wall Street Journal" (11/22/2008 12:00:00 AM)
In his book The Peculiar Life of Sundays, Stephen Miller sweeps through countries, epochs and theological debates to give a sense of the dialogue between Christianity and the wider culture over the proper place of Sunday in people's lives.--Brian Welter "Vancouver Sun" (12/27/2008 12:00:00 AM)
A revealing work of cultural history.--Bryce Christensen "Booklist" (11/15/2008 12:00:00 AM)
Miller's cultural history of Sunday observance in the Christian West becomes relevant reading because this day is now being subsumed by commercialization and secularization...The Peculiar Life of Sundays is a stained-glass window of Sunday lives...The Peculiar Life of Sundays succeeds in designing a complex and fascinating stained-glass window with each Sunday life sensitively executed to avoid unfair judgments.--Christopher Benson "Weekly Standard" (1/30/2009 12:00:00 AM)
Miller is a nimble and original cultural historian.--Jeremy Lewis "Literary Review" (2/1/2009 12:00:00 AM)
[A] polished and, at times, wistful meditation on the transformation of Sunday from late antiquity to the present.--Fiona Capp "The Age" (1/31/2009 12:00:00 AM)
A lively, absorbing history of Sunday observance in the Christian West.--Susan Schwartz "Montreal Gazette" (2/2/2009 12:00:00 AM)
The Peculiar Life of Sundays is consistently informative and diverting--as suitable for the melancholy Sunday mornings of the Velvet Underground as the lazy afternoons of the Small Faces.--Toby Lichtig "Times Literary Supplement" (2/20/2009 12:00:00 AM)
The idea behind this book is so interesting that I am surprised it has not been tackled before. In an erudite but humorous fashion Miller charts the history of Sunday worship: when it began and how it has been observed, in literature as well as life.--Charlie Hegarty "Catholic Herald" (12/11/2009 12:00:00 AM)
This engaging book provides a sweeping overview of Sunday observance in the Christian West from antiquity to the present.--G. T. Buggeln "Choice" (5/1/2009 12:00:00 AM)
Miller shows us the range of different approaches of literary minds to Sundays, from the beginning of Christianity to the present day, and his book clearly shows that Sundays have taken on a peculiar life of their own.--Arthur C. Sippo "New Oxford Review" (10/1/2010 12:00:00 AM)
Sunday, precisely because it was set apart for something other than work, became the stage for the complex moral and cultural debates that Miller's book describes.--Samuel Graber "Christianity and Literature" (6/1/2010 12:00:00 AM)
Here is a cultural history of Sunday observance in the Christian West, drawn from ancient and contemporary sources, explored through the psychological dialectic of gladness and gloom. Miller acquaints the reader with the Sunday lives of observant Christians (Augustine, George Herbert, Samuel Johnson, Jonathan Edwards), nonobservant Christians (John Ruskin, Robert Lowell), and lapsed Christians (Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Wallace Stevens), narrating a transformation of Sunday that began when Constantine's decree eclipsed pagan veneration for the sun god with Christian veneration for the Son of God. His focus on the Sabbatarian debates in America and Britain attests to the human need for a day of rest and reflection. Post-secular anxiety can be heard in this story, as residual blue laws fade to black--giving way to idle amusements and banal commerce. Now that Sundays are free of burdensome forms, they seem burdened by formlessness, which may be why Pope Benedict XVI exhorts, "Give the soul its Sunday, give Sunday its soul."-- "The Atlantic" (4/1/2009 12:00:00 AM)
A fascinating cultural history of Sunday that draws on some of our best-known writers and public figures. Fluently written, vastly enjoyable, both instructive and diverting.--David Mikics, University of Houston
[A] lively history of a day that has exercised a peculiar hold on countless human beings for the past 2,000 years.--Jay Tolson "Wall Street Journal" (11/22/2008 12:00:00 AM)
In his book The Peculiar Life of Sundays, Stephen Miller sweeps through countries, epochs and theological debates to give a sense of the dialogue between Christianity and the wider culture over the proper place of Sunday in people's lives.--Brian Welter "Vancouver Sun" (12/27/2008 12:00:00 AM)
A revealing work of cultural history.--Bryce Christensen "Booklist" (11/15/2008 12:00:00 AM)
Miller's cultural history of Sunday observance in the Christian West becomes relevant reading because this day is now being subsumed by commercialization and secularization...The Peculiar Life of Sundays is a stained-glass window of Sunday lives...The Peculiar Life of Sundays succeeds in designing a complex and fascinating stained-glass window with each Sunday life sensitively executed to avoid unfair judgments.--Christopher Benson "Weekly Standard" (1/30/2009 12:00:00 AM)
Miller is a nimble and original cultural historian.--Jeremy Lewis "Literary Review" (2/1/2009 12:00:00 AM)
[A] polished and, at times, wistful meditation on the transformation of Sunday from late antiquity to the present.--Fiona Capp "The Age" (1/31/2009 12:00:00 AM)
A lively, absorbing history of Sunday observance in the Christian West.--Susan Schwartz "Montreal Gazette" (2/2/2009 12:00:00 AM)
The Peculiar Life of Sundays is consistently informative and diverting--as suitable for the melancholy Sunday mornings of the Velvet Underground as the lazy afternoons of the Small Faces.--Toby Lichtig "Times Literary Supplement" (2/20/2009 12:00:00 AM)
The idea behind this book is so interesting that I am surprised it has not been tackled before. In an erudite but humorous fashion Miller charts the history of Sunday worship: when it began and how it has been observed, in literature as well as life.--Charlie Hegarty "Catholic Herald" (12/11/2009 12:00:00 AM)
This engaging book provides a sweeping overview of Sunday observance in the Christian West from antiquity to the present.--G. T. Buggeln "Choice" (5/1/2009 12:00:00 AM)
Miller shows us the range of different approaches of literary minds to Sundays, from the beginning of Christianity to the present day, and his book clearly shows that Sundays have taken on a peculiar life of their own.--Arthur C. Sippo "New Oxford Review" (10/1/2010 12:00:00 AM)
Sunday, precisely because it was set apart for something other than work, became the stage for the complex moral and cultural debates that Miller's book describes.--Samuel Graber "Christianity and Literature" (6/1/2010 12:00:00 AM)
Here is a cultural history of Sunday observance in the Christian West, drawn from ancient and contemporary sources, explored through the psychological dialectic of gladness and gloom. Miller acquaints the reader with the Sunday lives of observant Christians (Augustine, George Herbert, Samuel Johnson, Jonathan Edwards), nonobservant Christians (John Ruskin, Robert Lowell), and lapsed Christians (Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Wallace Stevens), narrating a transformation of Sunday that began when Constantine's decree eclipsed pagan veneration for the sun god with Christian veneration for the Son of God. His focus on the Sabbatarian debates in America and Britain attests to the human need for a day of rest and reflection. Post-secular anxiety can be heard in this story, as residual blue laws fade to black--giving way to idle amusements and banal commerce. Now that Sundays are free of burdensome forms, they seem burdened by formlessness, which may be why Pope Benedict XVI exhorts, "Give the soul its Sunday, give Sunday its soul."-- "The Atlantic" (4/1/2009 12:00:00 AM)
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