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 necessity of faith, but it is the combination of this theology with a highly-affected writing…

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Citation: Parisot, Eric. "James Hervey". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 15 February 2017 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2112, accessed 19 March 2024.]

2112 James Hervey 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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