Wilderness Lost: The Religious Origins of the American MindThis book establishes that there is a consistent tradition of wilderness imagery in American literature, A psychological reading of theology is applied to the writings of such authors as Thomas Hooker, Jonathan Edwards, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, and Dickinson. |
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... human consciousness and the means of reconciling it with the universal consciousness called God . Once having established this thesis , he identifies a pattern running through American politi- cal and literary culture that speaks di ...
... human consciousness and the means of reconciling it with the universal consciousness called God . Once having established this thesis , he identifies a pattern running through American politi- cal and literary culture that speaks di ...
Page 11
... human be- havior and protect humans from themselves had to be abandoned . The old , the comfortable , the secure first had to be burned away in what once was called the terror of divine wrath . Only after this experience of descent into ...
... human be- havior and protect humans from themselves had to be abandoned . The old , the comfortable , the secure first had to be burned away in what once was called the terror of divine wrath . Only after this experience of descent into ...
Page 13
... human graft . Many Americans , alienated from their own traditions , persuaded that the West is material and the East is spiritual , have felt it necessary to travel to exotic lands in search of spiritual sustenance . This need not be ...
... human graft . Many Americans , alienated from their own traditions , persuaded that the West is material and the East is spiritual , have felt it necessary to travel to exotic lands in search of spiritual sustenance . This need not be ...
Page 14
... human con- sciousness in which that state of mind , the wilderness , undermined the foundations of sanity , and it was used to preach madness as the only path to God . It called on all human beings not to shun the wilderness but to ...
... human con- sciousness in which that state of mind , the wilderness , undermined the foundations of sanity , and it was used to preach madness as the only path to God . It called on all human beings not to shun the wilderness but to ...
Page 16
... human knowledge and human perception . These theologians realized that all of their best knowledge was mere speculation spun out by the brain to try to fill the void . No human knowing , they maintained , could be justified ; it all ...
... human knowledge and human perception . These theologians realized that all of their best knowledge was mere speculation spun out by the brain to try to fill the void . No human knowing , they maintained , could be justified ; it all ...
Contents
9 | |
11 | |
23 | |
New England Canaan and the Wilderness | 46 |
The Great Awakening of Fear | 83 |
Revival and Revolution | 111 |
The Transcendental Growth | 149 |
Hawthorne Very and Dickinson The Wilderness of the Mind | 180 |
Herman Melville The Watery Wilderness | 213 |
Wilderness Lost Oliver Wendell Holmes and the OneHoss Shay | 235 |
9 Conclusion | 249 |
Notes | 254 |
Bibliography | 274 |
Index | 287 |
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Common terms and phrases
American Antinomian antitype Arminian Awakening behavior believed Boston called Calvinism Calvinist Cambridge Canaan century children of Israel Christ Christian church consciousness conversion Cotton Cotton Mather covenant culture darkness depravity desert divine doctrine doubt Egypt Emily Dickinson England eternal evangelical experience faith fear God's grace Hawthorne heart heaven hell Herman Melville Holmes's holy Hooker human Ibid identity imagined John Jonathan Edwards letters liberty literal wilderness Lord madness Mary Moody Emerson Mather Melville Melville's mind MME-RWE Moby-Dick mystic Nathaniel Hawthorne nature ness never Oliver Wendell Holmes perception Perry Miller poem preached promised land Puritan Ralph Waldo Emerson rational regeneration religion religious Revolution saints salvation scripture self-love sense sermon shay Shepard sinners sojourn soul spiritual Stoddard subconscious symbol terror Testament theology Thomas Thomas Hooker Thoreau thought tion Transcendental trials true truth Typology University Press vision wilderness imagery wilderness tradition Williams worldly wrath wrote York Zion
Popular passages
Page 111 - And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face, of the serpent.
Page 46 - He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.
Page 216 - And we Americans are the peculiar, chosen people - the Israel of our time; we bear the ark of the liberties of the world.
Page 36 - For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
Page 18 - To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, — that is genius.
Page 235 - HAVE you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay, That was built in such a logical way It ran a hundred years to a day, And then, of a sudden, it— ah, but stay...
Page 33 - And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no.
Page 28 - Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her. And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope : and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.
Page 227 - He saw God's foot upon the treadle of the loom, and spoke it; and therefore his shipmates called him mad.