La question relative à la propriété de la terre, de son usage et de son transfert entre les Indiens du sud de la Nouvelle Angleterre et les colons puritains venus s’installer parmi eux a non seulement été le sujet d’un bon nombre d’études et a toujours été un sujet de forte controverse. Cependant rares sont les études qui ont tenté de remettre en question ou de revoir la thèse qui décrète que les Indiens ont été dépossédés de leur terre par les colons anglais. C’est pourquoi il nous a paru intéressant d’aller au-delà de cette perspective traditionnelle de dépossession. Dans ce sens, l’objet de cette thèse est de démontrer que ce transfert de terre pourrait être considéré comme une transaction foncière réglementaire donnant suite à un échange équitable entre deux parties mutuellement consentantes. Nous visons à présenter une image différente de l’Indien de celle de la victime de la colonisation puritaine qui le présente comme un Indien passif, soumis et à qui on inflige une condition.Pour ce faire, nous nous baserons sur l’analyse des actes de vente de terres intervenus entre les tribus indiennes du sud de la Nouvelle Angleterre et les colons anglais, et ce dans la période comprise entre 1620 et 1676. Notre analyse de ces documents se fera selon une perspective ethno-historique. / The question of land property, use and transfer between the Indians of southern New England and the Puritans who settled among them has been the subject of a large literature and has always been a highly controversial issue. Giving the fact that this issue has always been referred to as a dispossession, we thought it interesting to go beyond this traditional perspective. Indeed, we propose to show that this movement of land transfer can be considered as a legal and just land transaction and that it was equitable to both parties. We also aim at presenting another image of the Indian; an image different from the one depicting him as a submitted Indian and a victim of colonial invasion and cultural assault. Our study is based on an ethnohistorical analysis of the land deeds that took place between the Indians and the English colonists in southern New England between 1620 and 1676.

This thesis seeks to realign Richard Crashaw’s aesthetic orientation with a broadly conceptualized genre of seventeenth-century devotional, or meditative, poetry. This realignment clarifies Crashaw’s worth as a poet within the Renaissance canon and helps to dismantle historicist and New Historicist readings that characterize him as a literary anomaly. The methodology consists of an expanded definition of meditative poetry, based primarily on Louis Martz’s original interpretation, followed by a series of close readings executed to show continuity between Crashaw and his contemporaries, not discordance. The thesis concludes by expanding the genre of seventeenth-century devotional poetry to include Edward Taylor, who despite his Puritanism, also exemplifies many of the same generic attributes as Crashaw.

This dissertation examines American attitudes towards death from the colonial era to the end of the nineteenth century. I begin with a close analysis of the thanatology of the Congregational church in New England, before demonstrating the lasting influence of Puritan thought on three later writers: Jonathan Edwards, Henry David Thoreau and Stephen Crane. In contrast to purely cultural studies of mortality in America (including those by Phillipe Ariès, David Stannard and Michael Steiner), my investigation discusses the philosophical difficulties that obstruct any attempt to speak about death. Building on Jacques Derrida’s work in Aporias (1993), I identify three logical impasses that interrupt Puritan writing on mortality: the indeterminacy, singularity and finality of death. While Edwards, Thoreau and Crane write in different circumstances and diverse genres, I argue that they are sensitive to these same three aporias when they discuss death. In this regard, they resist a broader post-Puritan tendency (in both scientific and sentimental texts) to minimize the uncertainties surrounding human mortality and approach death as a universal (rather than radically singular) phenomenon. While my study situates each of its authors in the cultural and intellectual contexts in which they worked, it also challenges the notion that it is possible to write a history of death. Speaking strictly, mankind’s relationship to death can never change. It is always, in fact, a non-relation. The very idea of death destabilizes our most fundamental historical and literary assumptions. Accordingly, my second chapter uses a deconstruction of Edwards’ theory of revivalism to argue that the New-England awakenings of the eighteenth century expressed the converts’ desire to renounce responsibility for their souls, rather than accept it. In my third chapter, I argue that those writings in which Thoreau registers what might seem to be a nihilistic fascination with dead and decaying bodies in fact express a sentimental desire for a peaceful death. Chapter four reads Stephen Crane’s poetry, fiction and journalism in the context of his Calvinist heritage, breaking down the distinction between his textual play with the concept of death and the Puritans’ “serious” attempts to come to terms with mortality.

This dissertation examines American attitudes towards death from the colonial era to the end of the nineteenth century. I begin with a close analysis of the thanatology of the Congregational church in New England, before demonstrating the lasting influence of Puritan thought on three later writers: Jonathan Edwards, Henry David Thoreau and Stephen Crane. In contrast to purely cultural studies of mortality in America (including those by Phillipe Ariès, David Stannard and Michael Steiner), my investigation discusses the philosophical difficulties that obstruct any attempt to speak about death. Building on Jacques Derrida’s work in Aporias (1993), I identify three logical impasses that interrupt Puritan writing on mortality: the indeterminacy, singularity and finality of death. While Edwards, Thoreau and Crane write in different circumstances and diverse genres, I argue that they are sensitive to these same three aporias when they discuss death. In this regard, they resist a broader post-Puritan tendency (in both scientific and sentimental texts) to minimize the uncertainties surrounding human mortality and approach death as a universal (rather than radically singular) phenomenon. While my study situates each of its authors in the cultural and intellectual contexts in which they worked, it also challenges the notion that it is possible to write a history of death. Speaking strictly, mankind’s relationship to death can never change. It is always, in fact, a non-relation. The very idea of death destabilizes our most fundamental historical and literary assumptions. Accordingly, my second chapter uses a deconstruction of Edwards’ theory of revivalism to argue that the New-England awakenings of the eighteenth century expressed the converts’ desire to renounce responsibility for their souls, rather than accept it. In my third chapter, I argue that those writings in which Thoreau registers what might seem to be a nihilistic fascination with dead and decaying bodies in fact express a sentimental desire for a peaceful death. Chapter four reads Stephen Crane’s poetry, fiction and journalism in the context of his Calvinist heritage, breaking down the distinction between his textual play with the concept of death and the Puritans’ “serious” attempts to come to terms with mortality.

The problem which confronts us at the outset, is the problem which has been facing historians for the past three hundred years: What were the causes of the English Civil War? What matters were responsible for the decisive split between Crown & Parliament into two distinct parties, and which ultimately led to civil war? Many theories and interpretations have been given. In this chapter, we will find that there are three major interpretations. The first is that it was a religious struggle - and so the Civil War became known as the 'Puritan Revolution'. The second is that it was a purely political conflict between the Crown and its Ministers, on the one hand, and the House of Commons, which had by then become the 'mirror' of the Puritan element in the country, on the other. And the third is that it was a class, or economic, war. Contemporary historians tended to regard it as a twofold struggle - a conflict over religion on the one hand, and the constitution on the other. It was they who coined the phrase 'Puritan Revolution'. This interpretation, however, has subsequently been challenged, in the light of the detailed research which has been conducted - especially in the field of economic history. And so the Civil War has been interpreted in terms of a social and economic conflict - it is said to be a class war. The social and economic factors have tended to become emphasized while the religious have been pushed into the background - often excluded altogether. It is my intention in this thesis, therefore, to assert once again the very real part played by religious matters in the origins of the English Civil War. Intro., p. 1.

This study explores continuities in thought between Jonathan Edwards and Ralph Waldo Emerson by comparing their respective views on spiritual awakening. Their parallel ideas are discussed as results of similar perceptual dispositions which lead both to view awakening as an inner metamorphosis that leaves man less self-centered and more capable of a universal perception and appreciation of spiritual unity and beauty. Emphasized are parallels in Edwards's and Emerson's concepts of God, their views on the nature of awakening, their versions of preparation, and their thoughts about virtue and the awakened man. These continuities are also discussed as ideas that compose an underlying unity in American thought which unites the seemingly contradictory heritages of Puritanism and transcendentalism.

No description available.

British colonization of the Bahamian island of Eleuthera began in the mid-­‐ seventeenth century with the arrival of Puritans who came from Bermuda, seeking refuge from religious persecution. Funded by a group of British investors called the Eleutherian Adventurers, This first group of settlers shipwrecked and took refuge in a cave, now known as Preacher’s Cave, where they adapted to the island’s maritime tropical environment. Archaeological excavations conducted at Preacher’s Cave recovered a large quantity of faunal remains. This thesis presents an analysis of these materials and compares the resultant findings to existing historical records pertaining to this settlement. Whereas historical sources document chronic shortages of imported food supplies, the archaeological faunal assemblage demonstrates that the Preacher’s Cave settlers relied primarily upon available resources of the sea and nearby habitats. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2014. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of English Language and Literature, August 2000. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

The Puritan attitude toward death in seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century New England was ambivalent and contained both terror at the possibility of eternal damnation and hope for deliverance. The joyful theme of the migratio ad Dominum resonated with the Saints only at times when they were convinced divine grace was actively working in their lives, but when they saw they were backsliding, the horror of death prevailed. Puritan anxiety about death was caused by tensions inherent in the doctrine of predestination, which implied man's dependence on God's inscrutability, and in the doctrine of assurance, which implied that self-doubt was more desirable than full assurance of salvation. What complicated any verification of the presence of grace was man's endless potential for self-deception. Memento mori gave urgency to the Puritan work ethic and the effective use of time. The anxiety about one's destiny began in early childhood when death and its ensuing horrors for the depraved were used as a means of religious instruction to provoke spiritual precocity and conversion. This early immersion into the discourse about death has been erroneously interpreted as a proof of the non-existence of childhood in Puritan New England. Deathbed scenes depicted in Puritan spiritual biographies were designed as examples...