Unhistorical Fictions: Sedgwick and Neal

2018 ◽  
pp. 56-90
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Insko
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
Historical Romance ◽  
Hope Leslie ◽  
Narrative Method ◽  
Present Tense ◽  
Colonial New England ◽  
Inherent Tendency

Chapter 2 attends two early works that, I argue, resist rather than participate in the formation of the historical romance tradition in antebellum U.S. literature and, in doing so, offer an implied critique of historicist assumptions and procedures. John Neal’s Seventy-Six (1823) and Catharine Maria Sedgwick’s Hope Leslie (1827) each experiments with writing (and experiencing) history through the present tense. Deploying anachronism as both narrative method and trope, Hope Leslie’s narrative of colonial New England disrupts the unidirectional course of time, challenging fundamental conceptions of the form and shape of history that are as prevalent today as in Sedgwick’s time. In Seventy-Six, Neal strives to render an account of history that neither refers nor means, but that simply is. Impossibly, Neal seeks to evacuate the narrative of temporality, to circumvent the inherent tendency of narrative to shape and bestow coherence upon experience—a coherence that inevitably distorts the particular tang of now.

Puritans and Race

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard A. Bailey
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
Colonial America ◽  
Colonial New England ◽  
Race And Religion

In scholarly discussions about “race” in the Americas, colonial New England often receives little attention. While race-based slavery perhaps never commanded the same attention in the northern colonies as in regions farther south, “race” factored into nearly every aspect of life in New England from the outset. This chapter not only discusses how scholars have approached this conversation but also investigates some of the ways in which New Englanders made sense of themselves and the peoples of varying ethnicities, relying at times on the specific theological context of New England puritanism. Focusing on the ways in which New Englanders wrestled with the dilemma of racial thinking within their theological system brings New England fully into the discussion of the intersections between “race” and religion in colonial America.

Literature & Theology in Colonial New England.

1951 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 536
Author(s):  
Theodore Hornberger ◽  
Kenneth B. Murdock
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
Colonial New England

Religious Enthusiasm and Separatism in Colonial New England

1945 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-140
Author(s):  
Maurice W. Armstrong
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
New England ◽  
Modern Democracy ◽  
English History ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
Liberty Of Conscience ◽  
Colonial New England ◽  
Established Church

Thomas Underhill, a citizen of London during the Commonwealth, described that period of English history as “Hell Broke Loose.” Partly as a result of Anabaptist influence, and partly as a continuation of the indigenous Lollard movement, large numbers of persons in every part of England separated themselves from the Established Church and formed themselves into independent religious societies. Some of these groups were very eccentric in their beliefs and practices. Thomas Edwards, their bitter opponent, made a Catalogue of “the Errors, Heresies, Blasphemies and Pernicious Practices … vented and acted in England” between the years 1642 and 1646, which he called, Gangraena. In it he distinguishes no less than two hundred and ten errors which were held by one or other of the sixteen groups into which he divides the sectaries. The sixteen were, “Independents, Brownists, Chiliasts or Millenaries, Antinomians, Anabaptists, Manifestarians or Arminians, Libertines, Familists, Enthusiasts, Seekers and Waiters, Perfectists, Socinians, Arians, Anti-Trinitarians, Anti-Scripturalists, Sceptics and Quietists.” The Parliamentary army especially abounded with men whose “great religion” was “liberty of conscience and liberty of preaching.” G. P. Gooch and others have shown how deeply the roots of modern democracy are embedded in the religious struggles of these seventeenth century sects. Most of them disappeared with the Commonwealth, or were absorbed in the rising Quaker movement, but certain fundamental principles for which they stood continued to exist and to mold public opinion.

Native Americans, Conversion, and Christian Practice in Colonial New England, 1640—1730

2009 ◽  
Vol 102 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linford D. Fisher
Keyword(s):  
Native Americans ◽  
New England ◽  
Massachusetts Bay ◽  
Native Culture ◽  
Massachusetts Bay Colony ◽  
Colonial New England ◽  
The One ◽  
Christian Practices ◽  
Gospel Message ◽  
Over Time

Fortunately, the two travelers arrived before sunset. Earlier in the day, on 5 May 1674, John Eliot and Daniel Gookin had set out from Boston for Wamesit, the northernmost of the fourteen Indian “praying towns” within the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and the one most subjected to retaliatory attacks from raiding bands of Mohawks in the previous few years. Upon safe arrival, the Englishmen greeted their Pennacook friends and gathered as many as they could at the wigwam of Wannalancet, the head sachem of Wamesit, where Eliot, the aging missionary to the Indians, proceeded to talk about the meaning of the parable of the marriage of the king's son in Matthew 22:1—4. Wannalancet, according to Gookin, was a “sober and grave person, and of years, between fifty and sixty”; he had from the beginning been “loving and friendly to the English,” and in return they had tried to encourage him to embrace Christianity. Although the English missionaries would have desired him to readily accept the gospel message they preached, Wannalancet voluntarily incorporated Christian practices slowly, over time, without necessarily repudiating his native culture and traditional religious practices.1 For four years Wannalancet “had been willing to hear the word of God preached”; when Eliot or other missionaries made their periodic visits to Wamesit, Wannalancet made sure he was there. Over time, Wannalancet adopted the English practices of keeping the Sabbath, learning to go to any available meeting or instruction, fellowshipping, and refraining from various activities proscribed by the town's praying leaders. Despite all that, however, the English missionaries still complained that he “hath stood off” since he had “not yielded up himself personally.”2

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document