The Devil and Doctor Dwight: Satire and Theology in the Early American Republic (Published for the Omohundro Institute of Early American Hist) [Paperback]

Colin Wells (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 4, 2001 | Series: Published for the Omohundro Institute of Early American Hist

At the close of the eighteenth century, Timothy Dwight--poet, clergyman, and, later, president of Yale College--waged a literary and intellectual war against the forces of "infidelity." The Devil and Doctor Dwight reexamines this episode by focusing on The Triumph of Infidelity (1788), the verse satire that launched Dwight's campaign and, Colin Wells argues, the key to recovering the deeper meaning of the threat of infidelity in the early years of the American Republic. The book also features the first modern, annotated edition of this important but long-overlooked poem.

Modeled after Alexander Pope's satiric masterpiece, the Dunciad, Dwight's poem took aim at a number of his contemporaries, but its principal target was Congregationalist Charles Chauncy, author of a controversial treatise asserting "the salvation of all men." To Dwight's mind, a belief in universal salvation issued from the same naive faith in innate human virtue and inevitable progress that governed all forms of Enlightenment thought, political as well as religious. Indeed, in subsequent works he traced with increasing dismay a shift in the idea of universal salvation from a theological doctrine to a political belief and symbol of American national identity. In this light, Dwight's campaign against infidelity must also be seen as an early and prescient critique of the ideological underpinnings of Jeffersonian democracy.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Here at the beginnings of the most fundamental of all American culture wars, Colin Wells discovers the most eloquent voice warning Americans against national and individual self-celebration. (David S. Shields, The Citadel)

Wells unfolds for the first time the subtlety, wit, and bite of one of the early national period's best major poems. (Lawrence Buell, Harvard University)

Wells's study illumines the dangers of treating politics and religion as de facto distinct intellectual and philosophical traditions. (Karin Wulf, American University)

After reading Wells's insightful study, no student of satire will be able to overlook its importance in Americans' responses to the French Revolution, Jeffersonian democracy, or socioreligious divisions. (Nancy Isenberg, University of Tulsa)

About the Author

Colin Wells is associate professor of English at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press; annotated edition edition (December 4, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807853836
• ISBN-13: 978-0807853832
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 6.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,659,013 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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