{"id":1559,"date":"2020-06-15T17:30:00","date_gmt":"2020-06-15T17:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/?p=1559"},"modified":"2025-09-21T18:23:59","modified_gmt":"2025-09-21T22:23:59","slug":"christopher-n-phillips-the-hymnal-a-reading-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/2020\/06\/15\/christopher-n-phillips-the-hymnal-a-reading-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Christopher N. Phillips, The Hymnal: A Reading History<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Christopher N. Phillips, The Hymnal: A Reading History<\/em><\/h1>\n\n
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Chris Cullnane<\/a><\/div>\n\n
in <\/span>Book review<\/a><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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\"The<\/a><\/svg><\/span><\/a><\/div><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Christopher N. Phillips. The Hymnal: A Reading History. <\/em>Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2018. xv, 252 p. ISBN: 9781421425924. US$39.95.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Christopher N. Phillips in his book, The Hymnal: A Reading History, <\/em>has expanded D.F. MacKenzie\u2019s idea of \u201csociology of texts\u201d (xi) into the genre of hymn books, calling it the \u201csocial lives of hymn books\u201d (x). He states, “hymnbooks were part of the everyday social practices of hundreds of thousands of English-speakers across two centuries, and I seek in this book to articulate and analyze those practices\u201d (x).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Phillips\ndivides the book into three sites of social reading: the church, the school,\nand the home, primarily in English society of the 18th<\/sup> and 19th<\/sup>\nCentury. The church was a place of social identity where hymns were sung. James\nMartineau, a British Unitarian compiler and hymnist, recorded in his hymn book\nthe dates that hymns were sung. In schools, the hymn book was a way of teaching\nreading to children. The hymn, \u201cWhen I Can Read My Title Clear\u201d was one of the\nmost popular family hymns that helped children to read (106). The home was the\nplace of the \u201cprivate hymnbook\u201d (185). A title such as Hymns for Mothers and Children<\/em> traveled from one family to another\nbecause of its large size and many illustrations. Today, we would probably call\nthis a coffee table book. Phillips points out that his chapters may be read\nseparately or chronologically to give a sense of history. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some interesting aspects of this book include the etchings in the prologue, courtesy of the American Antiquarian Society, which illustrate family Bible reading and hymnbook singing in the 19th<\/sup> Century. An important distinction is made between a hymnbook and a hymnal. Hymnbooks emphasize textual reading of poetry and hymns. Hymnals emphasize the singing of hymns. Phillips includes a short section (125-128) on parodies in Lewis Carroll\u2019s Alice\u2019s Adventures in Wonderland <\/em>of Isaac Watts\u2019s hymns Against Idleness, How Doth the Little Busy Bee, <\/em>and Tis the Voice of the Sluggard. <\/em>He also includes a chapter on Emily Dickinson and how her poetry was related to English hymnody.  <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Phillips gives some excellent book descriptions, including in the introduction provenance information of three Isaac Watts hymnbooks which could be valuable for book historians or book collectors searching for books to purchase. In contrast to his own book, Phillips points out two other important books in the field of hymns studies. He states that Louis Benson\u2019s \u201cdefinitive work\u201d is The English Hymn <\/em>published in 1915, which is a \u201c500-page survey of the production of hymnbooks and their place in their respective churches.\u201d The other title, also called The English Hymn<\/em>, by J.R. Watson, was published in 1999 and emphasizes the hymn \u201cas a poetic form surveying \u201cthe evolution of hymn writing in English\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A mention of Julia Ward Howe\u2019s tune, Battle Hymn of the Republic<\/em>, should have been included in Phillips\u2019s discussion. A new book, A Fiery Gospel: The Battle Hymn of the Republic and the Road to Righteous War<\/em> by Richard M. Gamble, states that the anthem had appeared in church hymnbooks in 1862 during the civil war (195) and was reinvented into a \u201cgospel hymn\u201d at that time.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For\nthe researcher, Phillips mentions several libraries that were helpful to him in\nproviding hymnbooks. These collections include the University of Edinburgh\u2019s\nNew College Library; the Huntington Library; Stanford University\u2019s Special\nCollections; the Charleston Historical Society; Emory University; University of\nPennsylvania; Princeton Theological Seminary; Dr. William\u2019s Library, and\nothers. Twenty-three pages of endnotes are also included with subject and\nselected hymns indexes. For those unfamiliar with binding terms Phillips has\nincluded a small glossary of bibliographic terms primarily from John Carter\u2019s ABC for Book Collectors. <\/em>In conclusion,\nthis book was a joy to read. It challenges contemporary readers with the\nimportance of reading hymns as well as singing them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chris\nCullnane, Belhaven University<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Phillips divides the book into three sites of social reading: the church, the school, and the home, primarily in English society of the 18th and 19th Century. The church was a place of social identity where hymns were sung. James Martineau, a British Unitarian compiler and hymnist, recorded in his hymn book the dates that hymns were sung. In schools, the hymn book was a way of teaching reading to children. The hymn, \u201cWhen I Can Read My Title Clear\u201d was one of the most popular family hymns that helped children to read (106). The home was the place of the \u201cprivate hymnbook\u201d (185). A title such as Hymns for Mothers and Children traveled from one family to another because of its large size and many illustrations. Today, we would probably call this a coffee table book. Phillips points out that his chapters may be read separately or chronologically to give a sense of history. \u261b \u261e<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1560,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"wp-custom-template-post-template-reviews","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1888],"tags":[1895,1896,1930,1954,1957],"class_list":["post-1559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-review","tag-18th-century","tag-19th-century","tag-europe","tag-reading-readership","tag-religion-theology"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1559"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5695,"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1559\/revisions\/5695"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}