New World, Known World: Shaping Knowledge in Early Anglo-American WritingNew World, Known World examines the works of four writers closely associated with the early period of English colonization, from 1624 to 1649: John Smith's Generall Historie of Virginia, William Bradford's Of Plymouth Plantation, Thomas Morton's New English Canaan, and Roger Williams's A Key into the Language of America (in conjunction with another of Williams's major works, The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution). David Read addresses these texts as examples of what he refers to as "individual knowledge projects"- the writers' attempts to shape raw information and experience into patterns and narratives that can be compared with and assessed against others from a given society's fund of accepted knowledge. Read argues that the body of Western knowledge in the period immediately before the development of well-defined scientific disciplines is primarily the work of individuals functioning in relative isolation, rather than institutions working in concert. The European colonization of other regions in the same period exposes in a way few historical situations do both the complexity and the uncertainty involved in the task of producing knowledge. Read treats each work as the project of a specific mind, reflecting a high degree of intentionality and design, and not simply as a collection of documentary evidence to be culled in the service of a large-scale argument. He shows that each author adds a distinct voice to the experience of North American colonization and that each articulates it in ways that are open to analysis in terms of form, style, convention, rhetorical strategies, and applications of metaphor and allegory. By applying the tools of literary interpretation to colonial texts, Read reaches a fuller understanding of the immediate consequences of English colonization in North America on the culture's base of knowledge. Students and scholars of early modern colonialism and transatlantic studies, as well as those with interests in seventeenth-century American and English literature, should find this book of particular value. |
From inside the book
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Page 10
... difficulty of forming a collective, coherent interpretation of a historical process at the time it is transpiring. Knowledge of the process emerges, when it emerges, only from the struggles of multiple individuals to know what it means ...
... difficulty of forming a collective, coherent interpretation of a historical process at the time it is transpiring. Knowledge of the process emerges, when it emerges, only from the struggles of multiple individuals to know what it means ...
Page 11
... difficulty of transforming a new world into a known world . Moreover , each author's struggle to overcome that difficulty can and does generate writing of distinctive ingenuity and power — even , at times , of startling artistry . In ...
... difficulty of transforming a new world into a known world . Moreover , each author's struggle to overcome that difficulty can and does generate writing of distinctive ingenuity and power — even , at times , of startling artistry . In ...
Page 12
... difficult to write. For Smith and Bradford, neither historia nor res gestae seems entirely adequate to the task of ordering the worlds of Jamestown and Plymouth, and my discussions of these two writers will turn on the problem of how ...
... difficult to write. For Smith and Bradford, neither historia nor res gestae seems entirely adequate to the task of ordering the worlds of Jamestown and Plymouth, and my discussions of these two writers will turn on the problem of how ...
Page 15
... difficult to “ observe , ” as Elliott puts it . My approach here , then , will be to take some extended time with works that often seem opaque and intractable to present - day readers , in the belief that study of these works as ...
... difficult to “ observe , ” as Elliott puts it . My approach here , then , will be to take some extended time with works that often seem opaque and intractable to present - day readers , in the belief that study of these works as ...
Page 16
... difficult tool, the written word. I should briefly address several matters of organization and presenta- tion. The sequence of material does not follow a strict bibliographical chronology, since in that case the chapter on Bradford ...
... difficult tool, the written word. I should briefly address several matters of organization and presenta- tion. The sequence of material does not follow a strict bibliographical chronology, since in that case the chapter on Bradford ...
Contents
1 | |
17 | |
2 Silent Partners | 43 |
3 Importing the Metropolis | 71 |
4 American Consciences | 95 |
Conclusion | 131 |
Appendix | 137 |
Notes | 141 |
Bibliography | 163 |
Index | 171 |
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Common terms and phrases
activity Adams Algonquian Allerton appears argue argument Ben Jonson Bloudy Tenent Bradford chapter character Christ church civil claim colonial texts colonial writers colonists Complete Writings conscience critical culture describes discourse discussion Dutch early colonial effort England English Canaan European Famous Voyage Francis Bacon Generall Historie Harriot’s hath Hayden White Historie of Virginia Hulme human Ibid Indians interpretation Jamestown Jehlen Jonson kind knowledge project Landskipp Language least literary literature Ma-re Mount Massachusetts material means Miantonomi Miller mind Morison Mount Wollaston Narragansetts narrative Native Americans nature offers Opechancanough passage perhaps Perry Miller Pilgrims Plymouth Plantation poem Powhatan presents problem providential providentialist Puritan readers reading rhetorical Richard Hakluyt Roger Williams Schweitzer second book seems sense separatists settlers seventeenth century sort speak suggests Testament Teunissen and Hinz things Thomas Morton tion trade Truth typology voice wilderness Williams's Wood words