SOURCE: Marshall, W. Gerald. “The Presence of ‘the Word’ in Cowper's The Task.” Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 27, no. 3 (summer 1987): 475-87.

In the following essay, Marshall argues that the loss of contact with the Word of God in the modern city is the central and unifying theme of The Task.

Throughout his poetic career, William Cowper maintained a strong Christian faith, one rooted in the Evangelicalism of eighteenth-century England.¹ A major aspect of that faith involves Cowper's understanding of the Logos, a concept which influences a number of his works. In his commentary on the Gospel of St. John, a fragmentary composition which, to my knowledge, has been totally ignored in Cowper studies, the poet asserts his belief in Christ as the Word of God, and he stresses the creative function of the Logos: “By the Word is to be understood the Son of God; Christ was that...