Religious Symbolism in Adelaide Anne Procter's Legends and Lyrics

This study deals with the religious symbolism of Legends and Lyrics by Adelaide Anne Procter. She was the representative poetess of her age who was greatly admired by Charles Dickens. Owing to the greatness of her work, several of her poems were later considered as hymns or devotional poems like The Pilgrims, Friend Sorrow and Judge Not etc. Her poems create religious affiliation with her readers as they include symbols, allusions, references and metaphors from the Bible. The words like, Lord, Father, Heaven, divine, sin, my child, grace, son, saints, eternal and immortal have repeatedly been used in her poetry. The symbols like cross, fish, lamb, the gifts, angels, serpent, tomb, lamp and blood etc. portray the religious expertise and knowledge of Procter. Her first poem The Angel’s Story deals with the sacred incident of the birth of Christ and her later poems also exhibit the events of his (Jesus) arrest, anguish, crucifixion, death and resurrection. The religious symbols used in the writings of other Victorian authors and poets have also been discussed in this book.