Pusey and the Romantic Poets: Some Links to Eucharistic Theology

This article examines some of the links between the nineteenth century Tractarian leader Edward Pusey and the Romantic poets, particularly Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in relation to eucharistic theology, especially Pusey's 1836 ‘Lectures on Types and Prophecies of the Old Testament’. Pusey's sacramental theology was affected by the Romantic poets in the expression of moderate realism which also played an important part in the Oxford Movement. Like the Romantic poets, Pusey saw nature as pointing to and conveying the presence of God and this had clear connections for Pusey to a moderate realist sacramental theology where the presence of the divine was known through the material: things like bread and wine and water.