James Hervey (1714-1758) was a Church of England minister and writer, whose Meditations among the Tombs (1746) is now most notably recognised as a prose counterpart to contemporaneous “graveyard poetry” and for its proto-Gothic aesthetics. Educated at Oxford (and later in life at Cambridge), Hervey joined the Oxford Methodists under the influence of John Wesley in 1733, and was well acquainted with prominent evangelical clergymen such as George Whitefield, Isaac Watts and Philip Doddridge for much of his life. Describing himself as a “moderate Calvinist” (Hervey, 1760, 2:91), Hervey’s religious life was imbued with a devotion to the gospel, the renunciation of earthly things, and the n…
552 words
Citation: Parisot, Eric. "James Hervey". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 15 February 2017 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2112, accessed 21 November 2024.]
