38th AGM Annual Lecture
We were delighted that Dr Alison Milbank delivered the 38th Annual Lecture on the subject of ‘Trollope the Moralist: A Victorian Dante?’. A distinguished scholar, Dr Milbank is Professor Emeritus of Theology and Literature at the University of Nottingham and Canon Theologian of Southwell Minster.
In this lecture, Dr Milbank explored Trollope’s role as a moralist, setting aside traditional critical divides to propose a bold comparison with Dante. Like Dante’s souls, Trollope’s characters were shown to reveal their virtues and vices through speech, letters, and the free indirect style that draws readers into their inner lives. The talk suggested that Trollope’s richly detailed world mirrored Dante’s, where setting and irony reflected moral states. Drawing on the virtue ethics tradition, Dr Milbank argued that Trollope, like Dante, invited us to learn through observing character, habit, and the shaping of desire.
Alison Milbank is Professor Emeritus of Theology and Literature at the University of Nottingham and Canon Theologian at Southwell Minster. Her research into the inter-relationship of religion and the arts ranges from the Gothic, in God and the Gothic: Religion, Romance, and Reality in the English Literary Tradition (Oxford, 2018) to Dante reception in Dante and the Victorians (Manchester, 1998). A recent essay on the clergy in Victorian literature featured Trollope prominently. She had just completed a Cambridge Element on Theology and Literature and was working on a study of divine immanence in Anglican natural philosophy and poetry. In the ecclesial area, she had a strong interest in the parish system of the Church of England, and was the author of The Once and Future Parish (SCM, 2023).
Photos of the event
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The recording of Dr Milbank’s talk is only available to members of the Trollope Society.
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