Robert Pollok's The Course of Time and Literary Theodicy in the Romantic Age

This book explores the contexts and reception history of Robert Pollok's religious epic The Course of Time. Considers the reasons for the poem's enormous popularity and precipitous decline, focusing on the poem's combination of evangelical Calvinism and High Romanticism.

Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Robert Pollok and the Contexts of The Course of Time
Summary of The Course of Time
Note on Language
Chapter 1: Miltonic Theodicy in the Romantic Age
Chapter 2: Epic Correspondences: How Pollok Used Milton
Chapter 3: Sources of Inspiration: Byron, John Dick, Edward Irving and old Mortality
Chapter 4: The Poem a Sermon: Religion and Moral Portraiture in The Course of Time
Chapter 5: Sharpening Weapons at the Forge of Byron: Romanticism and Apocalypticism in The Course of Time
Chapter 6: The Rise and Fall of a Christian Epic
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index