Prophetic Waters: The River in Early American Life and Literature

by John Seelye

Diverse Columbus, Cartier, and the Conradian shape of adventure in America -- Divine Hakluyt and the Virginia business -- Captain Captain John Smith, father of us all -- A model of the Pilgrims lend a prophetic presence to the land -- Glorious Governor Winthrop's wonderful wall -- Womb of Thomas Morton and the call of the wild -- By way of how Thomas Hooker crossed his Rubicon and started the Pequot a Hudibrastic interlude -- Ecclesiastic Puritan theocrats, despairing of the present generation, reform the past -- A fabric Cotton Mather's masterpiece; or, the original errand betrayed -- Providential wherein a matron, a minister, a militiaman, and a madam display the cardinal points of the Puritan Compass -- Return, Taylor, Sewall, Wolcott, and some poetic fabrics from the linsey-woolsey loom -- On his majesty's Robert Beverley, William Byrd, and the Palladian version of American pastoral.

Hardcover

First published April 28, 1977