This paper considers how three eighteenth-century works, by Hogarth, Handel, and Coleridge, reflect the Trinitarian structure of the world they, and we, inhabit. To see their wholeness we must see the harmonious interaction in them of Father, Son, and Spirit.

The following pieces of music will be referred to during the talk:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEZTQwq2iEY (Theodora, HWV 68, Act I: No. 13, Fond Flatt’ring World, Adieu!)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRlXqHMXqpQ (Theodora, HWV 68, Act II: No. 53, He Saw the Lovely Youth)

Nicholas Boyle was Schröder Professor of German at Cambridge from 2006-2013. He has a particular interest in German literature and thought of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, especially the work of Goethe, and in the relation between religion and literature.