KEBLE, JOHN. — Anglican theologian, preacher, and poet, born at Fairford in Gloucestershire on 25 April 1792, died at Bourremouth on 29 March 1866. After receiving his initial education from his father, an Anglican pastor, he obtained a scholarship at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. In 1811 he went as a tutor to Oriel College and began to exercise a great intellectual influence within the university milieu of Oxford. Ordained deacon (1815) and then priest (1816) by the Anglican bishop of Oxford, he was sent to exercise his ministry in small parishes and then became vicar at Southrop. In 1819 he began writing his hymns, published in 1827 under the title: The Christian year. The success was extraordinary; suffice it to say that in the year following K.’s death the 109th edition appeared, and that the editions had numbered 3000 and 5000 copies. In 1831 he became professor of poetry at Oxford. On 14 July 1833, at «St. Mary's» in Oxford, he delivered the famous sermon on «National apostasy»; 24 years later he could write to Newman: «I have always regarded and celebrated that day as the starting point of the religious movement». In fact, K. was always regarded by Newman as «the true initiator of the Oxford movement». K.’s collaboration in the famous Tracts of the times was intense: nos. 4, 12, 52, 54, 57, 60, and 89 are his. When, in 1841, the famous Tract 90 appeared, K. confessed that he had read and approved II. On 9 March 1836 he accepted the benefice of Hursley, which had become vacant, and shortly afterward published Hooker’s works. His reputation as a spiritual director then grew greater from day to day. In 1838, in collaboration with Newman and Pusey, he began working on the publication of the series of volumes entitled The Library of the Fathers. Newman’s conversion, which took place in 1845, greatly disturbed him; it does not seem, however, that he ever considered abandoning, as his illustrious friend did, that Anglican Church for which, on the other hand, he had worked so much.
K.’s works, in addition to those already mentioned, are the following: Catholic subscription to the XXXIX Articles, considered in reference to Tract XC (printed in 1865 with a new edition of Tract XC); The Psalter, or Psalms of David in English verse, by a Member of the University of Oxford, adapted for the most part to Times in common use (1839); De poeticae et medica praeclectiones Oxonii habitae annis 1832-45 (1841); Lyra innocentiam (1846);
Bibl. J. T. Coleridge, A Memoir of the Rev. J. K., Londra and Oxford 1869; W. Lock, J. K. A Biography, Londra 1893; C. Price, Leading Ideas of K.'s Christian Year, there 1900; A. B. Donaldson, Five great Oxford Leaders: K., Newman, Pusey, Liddon and Church, there 1902; H. Bremond, Ames religieuses, Parigi 1902, pp. 1–60; W. T. Warren, Kebleland, etc., Winchester and Londra 1906; Cardinal J. H. Newman, Correspondance of J. H. Newman with J. K. and others, 1839–45, s. 1, 1917; H. Beevor, Was it from Heaven? The Witness of J. K. to the Eucharistic Adoration, etc., Londra 1932; A. Ingram, J. K., there 1933; W. E. Daniels, J. K., 1792–1866, there 1948.
Giacomo de Bivort de la Saudée