Godly Letters

by Colacurcio, Michael J.

• ISBN13: 9780268022907
• ISBN10: 0268022909
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-09-30
• Publisher: Univ of Notre Dame Pr

Summary

"In Godly Letters, Michael J. Colacurcio analyzes a treasury of works written by the first generation of seventeenth-century American Puritans. Arguing that insufficient scrutiny has been given to this important oeuvre, he calls for a reevaluation of the imaginative and creative qualities of America's early literature of inspired ecclesiological experiment, one that focuses on the quality of the works as well as the demanding theology they express."--BOOK JACKET.

Author Biography

Michael J. Colacurcio is Distinguished Professor of English at the University of California, Los Angles.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Preface: Godly Letters	xi
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE A Costly Canaan: Morton and the Margins of American Literature	3	(34)
PART ONE. VISION
CHAPTER TWO Advancing the Gospel, Dividing the Church: Design and Vision Bradford's Plymouth	37	(68)
I. The Triumph of Design	37	(35)
II. The Failure of Vision	72	(33)
CHAPTER THREE "A Strange Poise of Spirit": The Life and Deaths of Thomas Shepard	105	(43)
CHAPTER FOUR The Charter and the "Model": Writing Winthrop's Holy State	148	(47)
PART TWO. DOCTRINE
CHAPTER FIVE Doubt's Venture, Faith's Call: Shepard's Activist Calvinism	195	(53)
I. Calvinist Activity in The Sincere Convert	195	(22)
II. The Spiritual Context of The Sound Believer	217	(31)
CHAPTER SIX Regeneration through Violence: Hooker and the Morale of Preparation	248	(83)
I. "Suffer the Words"	248	(27)
II. "A Holy Kind of Violence"	275	(28)
III. "Hammering a Truth"	303	(20)
IV "I See Not a Savior"	323	(8)
CHAPTER SEVEN Primitive Comfort: The Spiritual Witness of John Cotton	331	(38)
PART THREE. REVISION
CHAPTER EIGHT Wives and Lovers: Reaction and the Gender of Puritanism	369	(68)
I. Shepard's Virgins	369	(22)
II. Woman as Husband	391	(24)
III. Winthrop's Wife	415	(22)
CHAPTER NINE Marching Orders: Johnson's Summary Syntax	437	(59)
I. The Meaning of New England	437	(32)
II. The End of the World	469	(27)
CHAPTER TEN Government in Exile: Williams and the Decay of Dialogue	496	(43)
EPILOGUE
CHAPTER ELEVEN "God's Altar": The Fall to Poetry	539	(37)
Notes	576	(58)
Index	634