Seven Wise Men Of Colonial America

Gummere explores the attitudes toward the classics of seven prominent colonial Americans--Hugh Jones, Robert Calef, Michael Wigglesworth, Samuel Davies, Henry Melhior Muhlenberg, Benjamin Rush, and Thomas Paine. Each of them was essentially pragmatic and judged the value of the classics not only on the basis of their intrinsic worth but also for their relevance to contemporary problems.

Richard M. Gummere, writing with characteristic warmth and humor, explores the attitudes toward the classics of seven prominent colonial Americans--Hugh Jones, Robert Calef, Michael Wigglesworth, Samuel Davies, Henry Melhior Muhlenberg, Benjamin Rush, and Thomas Paine. A companion volume to the author's The American Colonial Mind and the Classical Tradition, this book provides separate, absorbing biographies of these "seven wise men." Each of them was essentially pragmatic and judged the value of the classics not only on the basis of their intrinsic worth but also for their relevance to contemporary problems. Hugh Jones--who advocated a practical training for the youth of Colonial Virginia--and Benjamin Rush questioned particularly the value of the classics as a requisite part of the school curriculum, although granting their importance for college admission and professional careers. Thomas Paine, openly skeptical about the wisdom of studying Greek and Latin in the original, scattered references in translation throughout his writings, so that he often seems to be "a classicist malgré lui." Higglesworth, Davies, and Muhlenberg regarded the ancient languages as aids to the understanding of Christian theology and as basic preparation for both the minister and the layman. Wigglesworth, at home in both ancient and modern literature, peppered his sermons with Latin quotations, but took care to keep his interpolations strictly subservient to the Gospel. Some academicians and religious leaders adapted or even misinterpreted the classics in order to find in them support for various moralistic positions. Robert Calef opposed this disingenuousness and debated vigorously with Cotton Mather the evils of the Salem witch trial convictions, whose virtue Mather sought to prove by citing classical myths and legends. Calef raised a seemingly lone voice in his plea for a Christian policy of forbearance and understanding.

Machine generated contents note: 1. Introduction: Jason Konig and Greg Woolf; Part I. Classical Encyclopaedism: 2. Encyclopaedism in the Roman Empire Jason Konig and Greg Woolf; 3. Encyclopaedism in the Alexandrian Library Myrto Hatzimichali; 4. Labores pro bono publico: the burdensome mission of Pliny's Natural History Mary Beagon; 5. Encyclopaedias of virtue? Collections of sayings and stories about wise men in Greek Teresa Morgan; 6. Plutarch's corpus of Quaestiones in the tradition of imperial Greek encyclopaedism Katerina Oikonomopoulou; 7. Artemidorus' Oneirocritica as fragmentary encyclopaedia Daniel Harris-McCoy; 8. Encyclopaedias and autocracy: Justinian's Encyclopaedia of Roman law Jill Harries; 9. Late Latin encyclopaedism: towards a new paradigm of practical knowledge Marco Formisano; Part II. Medieval Encyclopaedism: 10. Byzantine encyclopaedism of the ninth and tenth centuries Paul Magdalino; 11. The imperial systematisation of the past in Constantinople: Constantine VII and his Historical Excerpts Andres Nemeth; 12. Ad maiorem Dei gloriam: Joseph Rhakendys' synopsis of Byzantine learning Erika Gielen; 13. Shifting horizons: the medieval compilation of knowledge as mirror of a changing world Elizabeth Keen; 14. Isidore's Etymologies: on words and things Andrew Merrills; 15. Loose Giblets: encyclopaedic sensibilities of ordinatio and compilatio in later medieval English literary culture and the sad case of Reginald Pecock Ian Johnson; 16. Why was the fourteenth century a century of Arabic encyclopaedism? Elias Muhanna; 17. Opening up a world of knowledge: Mamluk encyclopaedias and their readers Maaike van Berkel; Part III. Renaissance Encyclopaedism: 18. Revisiting Renaissance encyclopaedism Ann Blair; 19. Philosophy and the Renaissance encyclpaedia: some observations D.C. Andersson; 20. Reading 'Pliny's Ape' in the Renaissance: the Polyhistor of Cai++.

In this classic work, Russell Kirk describes the beliefs and institutions that have nurtured the American soul and commonwealth. His analytical narrative might be called "a tale of five cities": Jerusalem, Athens, Rome, London, and Philadelphia. For an understanding of the significance of America at the dawn of a new century, Kirk's masterpiece on the history of American civilization is unsurpassable.

More than ten years in the making, this comprehensive single-volume literary survey is for the student, scholar, and general reader. The Continuum Encyclopedia of American Literature represents a collaborative effort, involving 300 contributors from across the US and Canada. Composed of more than 1,100 signed biographical-critical entries, this Encyclopedia serves as both guide and companion to the study and appreciation of American literature. A special feature is the topical article, of which there are 70.

As the author of The Conservative Mind and other seminal books, Russell Kirk is usually thought of as one of the American conservative political movement’s most important progenitors. But as this collection demonstrates, Kirk was perhaps at his best as an essayist. This volume also confirms that Kirk’s was principally a literary and historical conservatism that refused to fit the irreducible complexity of human experience to the requirements of any ideological straitjacket. With The Essential Russell Kirk, literary critic George A. Panichas captures the breadth and depth of Kirk’s intellectual project by gathering together forty-four of the most masterful of Kirk’s essays, along with a unique chronology told in Kirk’s own words and a substantial introduction that articulates the deep humanism that animated Kirk’s philosophy. The result is a carefully assembled volume that gives us a fuller picture of an extraordinary man and writer, one whose labors had, and continue to have, remarkable repercussions on the American literary and political landscape.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Cleopatra, the #1 national bestseller, unpacks the mystery of the Salem Witch Trials. It began in 1692, over an exceptionally raw Massachusetts winter, when a minister's daughter began to scream and convulse. It ended less than a year later, but not before 19 men and women had been hanged and an elderly man crushed to death. The panic spread quickly, involving the most educated men and prominent politicians in the colony. Neighbors accused neighbors, parents and children each other. Aside from suffrage, the Salem Witch Trials represent the only moment when women played the central role in American history. In curious ways, the trials would shape the future republic. As psychologically thrilling as it is historically seminal, THE WITCHES is Stacy Schiff's account of this fantastical story-the first great American mystery unveiled fully for the first time by one of our most acclaimed historians.

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