The nature of Puritanism in America and the role of emotion in religion is the subject of this important and useful collection of five religious orations, discussed and appraised by Professor White for students of Puritanism and rhetoric. The five orations presented here consist of three by Jonathan Edwards, “Future Punishment,” “Distinguishing Marks,” and “The Nature of the Affections”; one by Charles Chauncy, “Enthusiasm Described and Caution’d Against”; and one by Ebenezer Gay, “Natural Religion, as Distinguished from Revealed.”
In the first or introductory part of the book, Professor White discusses in considerable detail the broader implications of the confrontation between rationalists and revivalists in New England, represented by the following orations, during this most important upheaval in the Colonies prior to the Revolution. The orations themselves are arranged to represent the force and counterforce of reason versus emotionalism and the precarious balance maintained momentarily and, eventually, lost. And in the third part of the book Professor White provides critical analysis and suggested appraisal for further interpretation and inquiry.
Eugene E. White is Professor of Speech and Graduate Coordinator at Pennsylvania State University. Winner of numerous awards, he is the author of four textbooks and an anthology of American speeches.
David Potter, general editor of the Landmarks series, is Professor of Speech at Southern Illinois University.
This review is from: Puritan Rhetoric: The Issue of Emotion in Religion (Landmarks in Rhetoric & Public Address) (Hardcover)
The Puritans are the founding fathers of the United States, victims of religous persecution in Europe who fled on the Mayflower to the New World, founding Jamestown and Plymouth among others the first white settlements in America. This book deals with the issue of emotion of religion, trying to paint a picture of pilgrims as a modern figure that was disrupted by the Great Awakening and split New England. The second part is five speeches that illuminate the stages of the Awakening and the confrontations among the protagonists. Includes terror preaching, oblique apposition between the chief protagonists of the revival dividing New England into two camps.
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