Download Thesis
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ Language and Identity in the Literature of the Seventeenth-Century New England Puritans Stanley, Alison Awarding institution: King's College London The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you receive permission from the author. Your fair dealings and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 04. Oct. 2021 This electronic theses or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ Title: Language and Identity in the Literature of the Seventeenth-Century New England Puritans Author: Alison Stanley The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ You are free to: Share: to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you receive permission from the author. Your fair dealings and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Language and Identity in the Literature of the Seventeenth- Century New England Puritans Alison Kate Stanley Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy King’s College, London August 2011 Abstract Seventeenth-century migrants to New England found themselves in a new and unsettling situation, surrounded by alien European and indigenous groups, whose different languages, cultures and religious beliefs questioned and sometimes threatened the beliefs of the settlers. This thesis examines the points at which the colonists came into contact with other cultures, and analyses what these interactions can tell us about how identity was constructed and displayed in the period. I do this largely through analysis of the ways language was used and discussed in contemporary texts printed in London and Massachusetts which aimed to influence readers’ views of colonial identities. By looking at a series of specific challenges when language or issues relating to it became contentious or important, as detailed below, I argue that language was intrinsically connected to English Puritan identity in the period. My first chapter discusses contemporary language textbooks by Williams and Eliot, analysing the ways in which different presentations of similar Native American languages offer insights into the ways contemporary thought linked language to culture and identity. The next two chapters examine the ways language was linked to Puritan religious identity by discussing colonial responses to two new challenges to their beliefs in the 1650s: firstly, the request of the Praying Indians to be accepted into the colonial churches; and secondly, the denunciations of the colonial churches made by visiting Quakers. The final two chapters discuss questions of language and translation during the traumatic events of King Philip’s War. Chapter four analyses war writing which used Old Testament narratives to re-interpret early defeats, and to excuse acts of violence and destruction perpetrated by colonial forces. The final chapter examines depictions of Indian language during the war, and argues that refusals to discuss the problems of intercultural translation and descriptions of Indians speaking broken English are two manifestations of the same changing attitude to language and identity. 2 Contents Acknowledgements 6 Publications Acknowledgements 7 Note on Quotations 7 Introduction 8 Language, Identity and Power 8 Language in the New World 10 Language in the Seventeenth Century 12 Identity 14 Methodology 16 Critical Survey and Historiography 19 Language and Identity 19 Puritanism 21 Native Studies / Ethnohistory 22 Quakerism in the Seventeenth Century 24 Captivity Narratives 24 Puritan Language and Identity under Challenge 25 1. Linguistics and Colonialism 29 Introduction 29 The Key and the Grammar 33 Connecting and Diverging Lives 34 Algonquian Grammar 38 Language Models and Texts 40 The Indian Grammar Begun 40 A Key into the Language of America 45 Colonial Identities 49 Social Position 50 Religion 54 Nationality and Colonialism 60 3 2. Translating Praying Indian Identities in the ‘Eliot Tracts’ 68 Introduction 69 Social and Political Background 72 Religious Background 74 Linguistic and Cultural Translation 77 The English Template of the Praying Towns 80 Eyewitnessing and Eavesdropping 82 Emotion 84 Translation 86 Questions 88 Observation and Surveillance 91 Conversion Narratives: Structure and Expectations 94 Nishohkou’s Narratives 100 Conclusions 106 3. Usurping Colonial Narratives: The Quaker Challenge to Puritan Identity 109 Introduction 109 Historical Background 110 Cultural and Political Tension 113 Quaker Identity 114 A Threat From Within 119 Usurping Colonial Narratives 127 Interpretation 128 By their Words and Fruits 129 Death and Authority 131 Martyrdom 136 Unsuccessful Puritan Adaptation 148 Conclusions 151 4. In a Glass, Darkly: Methods of Understanding King Philip’s War 152 Introduction 152 A Glass for New England 153 Background to King Philip’s War 154 Background to Texts 159 Defeat and Destruction 162 Framing Colonial Conquest: New England in an Old Testament Mirror 162 Non-Biblical Symmetries: Creating Narratives from Events 172 Depiction of Indian Mockery and Jealousy 178 4 Moments of Tension 183 Conclusions 192 5. Speaking with the Enemy: Indian Language and Translation in Seventeenth-Century Accounts of King Philip’s War 194 Introduction 194 Historical Background 196 Background and Introduction to Language Ideas 198 Transparent Language, Shattered Language 203 Invisible Translation: The Captivity Narrative 205 Language, Religion and Culture 212 Broken English 216 English Models of Regional Dialects 223 Conclusions 225 Conclusion 226 Bibliography 230 5 Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisor, Professor Susan Castillo, for all her help, support and encouragement, both academic and general, over the last few years – and not least for her generous hospitality and wonderful cooking. Thanks to Susan, four years of intensive work and research were not only intellectually stimulating but also highly enjoyable. Thanks go also to the staff and researchers at the John Carter Brown library for not only helping me find my way around their fantastic collection, but also in being so friendly and welcoming to a researcher who was only visiting for a very short time. My trip there was funded by a Small Research Grant from King’s College London, for which I am very grateful. Thanks also go to Kings for funding my PhD and enabling me to carry out this research. The American Studies postgraduate students at Kings have been an endless source of entertaining and occasionally even academic conversations. In particular, thanks to Susan’s BA gang, especially Linda, Bonnie, and Christina, for all the support, conversation, and coffee breaks in the British Library (and to Christina for all the very specific advice on what I should do with the thesis in the last stages of writing up). And thanks to everyone at POLIS for keeping me sane over the last couple of months of writing up. My parents can claim an important share of thanks (or blame!) for my writing of this thesis: my mum, for giving me a love of books; my dad, for sparking my interest in doing research; and both of them, for all their endless love and support (and “gentle encouragement” while writing up). To Ele, thanks for keeping me going with chocolate, postcards, and entertaining text messages at one in the morning; to Tom, thanks for making it back just in time to see the finished product! And finally, to David. For everything. 6 Publications Acknowledgements A version of Chapter One, ‘Linguistics and Colonialism’, has been published as ‘“To Speak With Other Tongues”: Linguistics, Colonialism and Identity in 17th