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Puritan American writers faced a dilemma: they had an obligation to use language as a celebration of divine artistry, but they could not allow their writing to become an iconic graven image of authorial self-idolatry. In this study William Scheick explores one way in which William Bradford, Nathaniel Ward, Anne Bradstreet, Urian Oakes, Edward Taylor, and Jonathan Edwards mediated these conflicting imperatives. They did so, he argues, by creating moments in their works when they and their audience could hesitate and contemplate the central paradox of language: its capacity to intimate both conc

American literature --- Puritan authors --- History and criticism --- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775 --- New England --- Christian literature [American ] --- Puritans --- Intellectual life --- Rhetoric --- 1500-1800 --- Bradford, William --- Criticism and interpretation --- Morton, Thomas --- Mather, Richard --- Taylor, Edward --- Bradstreet, Anne Dudley --- Edwards, Jonathan --- Bellamy, Edward --- Fiske, Nathan --- English language --- Christian literature, American --- English literature --- Agrarians (Group of writers) --- Rhetoric. --- Intellectual life. --- History and criticism. --- Germanic languages