Synopses & Reviews
The people of colonial New England lived in a densely metaphoric landscapea world where familiars invaded bodies without warning, witches passed with ease through locked doors, and houses blew down in gusts of angry, providential wind. Meaning, Robert St. George argues, was layered, often indirect, and inextricably intertwined with memory, apprehension, and imagination. By exploring the linkages between such cultural expressions as seventeenth-century farmsteads, witchcraft narratives, eighteenth-century crowd violence, and popular portraits of New England Federalists, St. George demonstrates that in early New England, things mattered as much as words in the shaping of metaphor.
These forms of cultural representationarchitecture and gravestones, metaphysical poetry and sermons, popular religion and labor politicsare connected through what St. George calls a 'poetics of implication.' Words, objects, and actions, referentially interdependent, demonstrate the continued resilience and power of seventeenth-century popular culture throughout the eighteenth century. Illuminating their interconnectedness, St. George calls into question the actual impact of the so-called Enlightenment, suggesting just how long a shadow the colonial climate of fear and inner instability cast over the warm glow of the early national period.
Review
St. George finesses the epistemic shift from faith to science into a richly suggestive account.
American Literary History
Review
In its loving treatment of detail and its balanced and profound reflections, the book makes a wonderful read.
Journal of American Folklore
Review
[M]ajoryea, an outstandingcontribution to material culture, New England, and early American studies, and should take its place proudly.
Vernacular Architecture Newsletter
Review
[A]
tour de force examination of the multiple meanings embedded in corporeal things.
The Journal of American History
Review
Perhaps the book's greatest accomplishment is its willingness to question long-standing assumptions.
American Historical Review
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 401-454) and index.
About the Author
Robert Blair St. George is associate professor of folklore and folklife at the University of Pennsylvania.
Table of Contents
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction. On Implication
1. Implicated Places
2. Embodied Spaces
3. Attacking Houses
4. Disappearing Acts
Afterword. Metaphysics and Markets
Notes
Index
Illustrations and Maps
Plates 1 through 134.
Maps 1 through 5.
Tables
1. Trades Practiced by Transatlantic Migrants to Boston, 1660-1740
2. Trades Practiced by Intercolonial Artisan Migrants to Boston, 1660-1740
3. Trades Practiced by Artisan Migrants from Rural New England to Boston, 1660-1740
4. Distances Traveled by Artisan Migrants from Rural New England to Boston, 1660-1740
5. Trades Practiced by Artisan Migrants to Boston, 1660-1740
6. Occupational Participation in Petitions of 1677 and 1696
7. Occupational Participation in Subscription List for Market/Town House, 1656
8. Trades Practiced by Artisans Arriving in Boston, March 1763-August 1765
9. Reported Destruction of Houses and Barns during King Philip's War, 1675-1676
10. Officeholding of Deputies to Connecticut General Assembly, with Ranking for Population and Artisanal Activity, in Towns Where Ralph Earl Worked
11. Subscription Levels to 1792 Connecticut Artisans' Petition in Towns Where Ralph Earl Worked
12. Buildings Destroyed in Rhode Island during the British Occupation, 1776-1779