05788cam a2200745Ma 4500 ocn993608862 OCoLC 20200709060542.0 m d cr |||||||nn|n 170321s2017 alu ob 001 0 eng d P@U eng pn P@U N$T YDX EBLCP UAB MERUC OCL OCLCQ OCLCO 9780817391232 (electronic bk.) 0817391231 (electronic bk.) 9780817319472 (hardback) 0817319476 1516439 (N$T) (OCoLC)993608862 4910906 Proquest Ebook Central n-us--- PS374.P8 L45 2017 LIT 004020 bisacsh 813/.5409 23 LIT004020 REL053000 bisacsh MAIN Leise, Christopher, 1978- author. The story upon a hill : the Puritan myth in contemporary American fiction / Christopher Leise. Tuscaloosa : University Alabama Press, 2017. ©20 1 online resource text txt rdacontent computer c rdamedia online resource cr rdacarrier Includes bibliographical references and index. "A timely study of contemporary American literature that highlights the everpresence of Puritan myths in American identity and culture"-- Provided by publisher. "In this provocative and thought-provoking volume, Christopher Leise sheds new light on modern American novelists who question not only the assumption that Puritans founded New England--and, by extension, American identity--but also whether Puritanism ever existed in the United States at all. The Story upon a Hill: The Puritan Myth in Contemporary American Fiction analyzes the work of several of the most important contemporary writers in the United States as reinterpreting commonplace narratives of the country's origins with a keen eye on the effects of inclusion and exclusion that Puritan myths promote. In 1989, Ronald Reagan recalled the words of Massachusetts Bay Colony governor John Winthrop, who imagined the colony as a "city upon a hill" for future nations to emulate. In Reagan's speech, Winthrop's signature rhetoric became an emblem of American idealism, and for many Americans, the Puritans' New England was the place where the United States forged its original identity. But what if Winthrop never gave that speech? What if he did not even write it? Historians cannot definitively answer these questions. In fact, no group that we refer to as American Puritans thought of themselves as Puritans. Rather, they were a group of dissident Christians often better defined by their disagreements than their shared beliefs. Literary scholars interested in Anglo-American literary production from the seventeenth century through the present, historians, and readers interested in how ideas about Christianity circulate in popular culture will find fascinating the ways in which William Gaddis, Kurt Vonnegut, Thomas Pynchon, and Marilynne Robinson repurpose so-called Puritan forms of expression to forge a new narrative of New England's Congregationalist legacy in American letters. Works by Colson Whitehead, Paul Auster, Toni Morrison, and others are also considered. The Story upon a Hill raises a provocative question: if the Puritans never existed as we understand them, what might American history look like in that context?"-- Provided by publisher. Print version record. Acknowledgments; Introduction: Salem and the Selling of American Selfhood; 1. The What That's in a Name: Settling On an American Puritanism; 2. Hawthorne, Gaddis, and Models of American Identity; 3. Alien Abduction as Captivity Nonnarrative in Slaughterhouse-Five; 4. Thomas Pynchon, the Sloth of Salvation, and Becoming Converted; 5. Rereading Puritan Spiritual Autobiography in Gilead; 6. Types of Exceptionalism: Colson Whitehead, Ronald Reagan, John Kennedy, Paul Auster; 7. America before Puritanism: or, Toni Morrison's Decentered English Origin. Conclusion: Tituba, Hopefully, UnknowableNotes; Works Cited; Index. Master record variable field(s) change: 050 National characteristics, American, in literature. Christianity and literature United States. Puritans United States Influence. Puritans in literature. American fiction 21st century History and criticism. American fiction 20th century History and criticism. RELIGION Christianity Protestant. bisacsh LITERARY CRITICISM American General. bisacsh American fiction. fast (OCoLC)fst00807048 Christianity and literature. fast (OCoLC)fst00859681 National characteristics, American, in literature. fast (OCoLC)fst01033350 Puritans in literature. fast (OCoLC)fst01084379 Puritans Influence. fast (OCoLC)fst01084367 United States. fast (OCoLC)fst01204155 1900-2099 fast Electronic books. Criticism, interpretation, etc. fast (OCoLC)fst01411635 Print version: Leise, Christopher, 1978- Story upon a hill. Tuscaloosa : University Alabama Press, 2017 (DLC) 2016052376 EBSCOhost http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&db=nlabk&AN=1516439 EBL - Ebook Library EBLB EBL4910906 EBSCOhost EBSC 1516439 Project MUSE MUSE muse58207 YBP Library Services YANK 14683359 92 N$T 57330 57330