Date of Award
Summer 8-24-2024
Document Type
Masters Thesis
Degree Name
M.A. in English
Organizational Unit
College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences, English and Literary Arts
First Advisor
Clark Davis
Second Advisor
Scott Howard
Third Advisor
Susan Schulten
Copyright Statement / License for Reuse
All Rights Reserved.
Keywords
Antinomianism, Fasting, New England, Puritanism, Sermons
Abstract
The fast sermon is an important and overlooked genre in the literary history of colonial New England, one which complicates theories about American puritanism underwritten by the imprecise narrative construct of the jeremiad. This thesis will argue that preachers used fast sermons to shape their communities, respond to major events, and provide competing interpretations of Congregationalist doctrine throughout the seventeenth century. Borrowing from the methodologies of new formalist criticism and Louis Althusser’s theory of material ideology, it will examine common themes, motifs, and rhetorical demands in John Wheelwright’s 1637 Fast Sermon, Thomas Shepard’s 1645 Wine for Gospel Wantons, and Thomas Thacher’s 1674 A Fast of Gods Chusing in order to show that preachers were participating in an ongoing dialogue about the meaning of works in religious life generally and of religious fasting in the long wake of the Antinomian Controversy specifically.
Copyright Date
8-2024
Publication Statement
Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.
Rights Holder
Daniel Patrick McGee
Provenance
Received from author
File Format
application/pdf
Language
English (eng)
Extent
131 pgs
File Size
688 KB
Recommended Citation
McGee, Daniel Patrick, "On Salvation and Genre: Fast Sermons in Seventeenth-Century New England" (2024). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 2495.
https://digitalcommons.du.edu/etd/2495
Included in
American Literature Commons, History of Christianity Commons, Literature in English, North America Commons, Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons
