Philip F. Gura

Early American Literature at the New Century

N these pages in i988 (for a Forum) I assessed the scholarship in early J American literature from the founding of Early American Literature in 1i966 through I987 and received responses from Larzer Ziff, Norman S. Grabo, and the late David Levin.1 The Forum originated in my disappointment at not finding its subject treated in Jack P. Greene and J. R. Poles landmark volume, Colonial British America.2 This rich and wide-ranging collection set an agenda for historians of colonial British America yet contained nary a word to guide scholars in the belle-lettristic literature or, to define matters more broadly, the written discourse of British America. I sought to offer the missing essay and organized my assessment around three different points. Because they offer a jumpingoff place for my understanding of how far scholars have come since I987 and where in the new century we might profitably go, I briefly summarize them. First, I observed that most often the literature of British America was seen as a mere prologue to the literature of the United States of America and thus was not considered in its own right and on its own terms. Put another way, one of the most striking things about the study of early American literature through the i980s was the persistence, even among the most sophisticated critics, of the notion of profound continuities between early American literary expression and the canonized literature of the United States in the mid-nineteenth century, and the concomitant

Jonathan Edwards in American Literature

Vol. 1. Freedom of the Will. Ed. Paul Ramsey. 1957. Vol. 2. The Religious Affections. Ed. John E. Smith. 1959. Vol. 3. Original Sin. Ed. Clyde A. Holbrook. 1970. Vol. 4. The Great Awakening. Ed. C. C. Goen. 1972. Vol. 5. Apocalyptical Writings. Ed. Stephen J. Stein. 1977. Vol. 6. Scientific and Philosophical Writings. Ed. Wallace E. Anderson. 1980. Vol. 7. The Life of David Brainerd. Ed. Norman Petit. 1985. Vol. 8. Ethical Writings. Ed. Paul Ramsey. 1989. Vol. 9. A History of the Work of Redemption. Ed. John F. Wilson. 1989. Vol. 10. Sermons and Discourses, 1720–1723. Ed. Wilson H. Kimnach. 1992. Vol. 11. Typological Writings. Ed. Wallace E. Anderson and Mason I. Lowance, Jr., with David Watters. 1993. Vol. 12. Ecclesiastical Writings. Ed. David D. Hall. 1994. Vol. 13. The ‘‘Miscellanies,’’ a-500. Ed. Thomas A. Schafer. 1994. Vol. 14. Sermons and Discourses, 1723–1729. Ed. Kenneth P. Minkema. 1997. Vol. 15. Notes on Scripture. Ed. Stephen J. Stein. 1998. Vol. 16. Letters and Personal Writings. Ed. George S. Claghorn. 1998. Vol. 17. Sermons and Discourses, 1730–1733. Ed. Mark Valeri. 1999. Vol. 18. The ‘‘Miscellanies,’’ 501–832. Ed. Ava Chamberlain. 2000. Vol. 19. Sermons and Discourses, 1734–1738. Ed. M. X. Lesser. 2001. Vol. 20. The ‘‘Miscellanies,’’ 833–1152. Ed. Amy Plantinga Pauw. 2002.

Columbia Literary History of the United States.

PrefaceGeneral IntroductionNote on the TextAcknowledgmentsPart One. Beginnings to 1810I. A Key into the Languages of AmericaII. The Prose and Poetry of Colonial AmericaIII. America in TransitionIV. The Literature of the New RepublicPart Two. 1810-1865I. The Age in PerspectiveII. Cultural Diversity and Literary FormsIII. Intellectual Movements and Social ChangeIV. The American RenaissancePart Three. 1865-1910I. Signs of the TimesII. Genre DeliberationsIII. Literary DiversitiesIV. Major VoicesPart Four. 1910-1945I. Contexts and BackgroundsII. Regionalism, Ethnicity, and Gender: Comparative Literary CulturesIII. FictionIV. Poetry and CriticismPart Five. 1945 to the PresentI. The Postwar EraII. Forms and GenresIII. The PresentNotes on ContributorsIndex

Buried from the world : inside the Massachusetts State Prison, 1829-1831 : the memorandum books of the rev. Jared Curtis

Between 1829 and 1831, Jared Curtis, the newly appointed prison chaplain at the Massachusetts State Prison in Charlestown, interviewed every one of the over 300 inmates at the prison and recorded their biographies in two leatherbound notebooks. Those notebooks, fully transcribed and well annotated after their discovery in 1998, form the basis for Philip F. Guras Buried from the World. Curtiss notebooks provide the sole memorial of the hundreds of inarticulate prisoners who lived in the vast silence of Charlestown prison. The one or two paragraphs he devoted to each man capture in poignant shorthand lives otherwise lost to history, including details of age, race, upbringing and education, temperance, and the crime that brought that individual to Charlestown. Curtiss words, surrogate for theirs, reveal as in no other known document the contours of the prison experience in Jacksonian America. Gura places the document in its historical context with a thorough and thoughtful introduction. He reviews the nature of nineteenth-century prison reform as the backdrop for the 1829 reorganization of the Massachusetts facility in which Curtis worked. Gura also details the daily regimen and conditions within the state prison and discusses the demographics of the institutions remarkably heterogeneous population.

Studies in the American Renaissance: 1977

Will reading habit influence your life? Many say yes. Reading studies in the american renaissance 1994 is a good habit; you can develop this habit to be such interesting way. Yeah, reading habit will not only make you have any favourite activity. It will be one of guidance of your life. When reading has become a habit, you will not make it as disturbing activities or as boring activity. You can gain many benefits and importances of reading.