The Secret Life of Jane Ellen Harrison

The scholarship on Jane Ellen Harrison s personal§religious beliefs has focused solely on her§Evangelical upbringing, which involved a strict§stepmother and a religion based on the fear of §hellfire and damnation. The current scholarship has§translated her antagonism against Evangelicalism as §a hatred of all religion; however, a close reading §of Harrison s letters and work reveal that as a §young girl in Yorkshire she discovered a religion §that made her intensely aware of ritual and the §religious impulse. Her letters, autobiography, and §notes in the Newnham Archive at Cambridge University §combine to help piece together a puzzle about an §undetected aspect of her life the High Church §Movement that became synonymous with what was called §Anglican ritualism. This work will shed light, not §only on a surprising aspect of Harrison s life, but §on the almost forgotten ritualistic saga, which §seeped into all aspects of Victorian culture. §Understanding how the ritualistic movement affected §Harrison and her interpretation of Archaic Greek §religion opens up new avenues for understanding §Victorian art, literature, society, and religion.