The Puritan Conversion Narrative
The Beginnings of American Expression

This book explores the testimonies of spiritual experience delivered by puritans in the mid-seventeenth century in order to qualify for membership of their local churches.

Patricia Caldwell (Author)

9780521311472, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 29 November 1985

224 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.3 cm, 0.34 kg

' … Patricia Caldwell entirely succeeds in persuading us to hear 'the faint murmurings of a truly American voice.' The Times Higher Education Supplement

In the mid-seventeenth century, persons on both sides of the Atlantic wishing to join a Puritan church had to appear before all of its members and tell the story of their religious conversion - in effect, to give convincing verbal evidence that their souls were saved. New England's Puritans widely adopted this practice, and in this book Patricia Caldwell attempts to unravel the mystery of this procedure by viewing it as a literary phenomenon that met the special imaginative and expressive needs of troubled people in a time of great turmoil. In the first comparative reading of conversion stories as literary expression, Caldwell shows that these symbolic and deeply religious narratives represent 'the first faint murmurings of a truly American voice'.

Preface
Introduction
Part I. The Conversion Narrative as a Form of Expression in the Puritan Gathered Churches: 1. Origins
2. Controversy
Part II. Sea Change: The Conversion Narrative in The New World: 3. Disappointment
4. The problem of expression
5. The American morphology of conversion
6. Epilogue
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: general [DSB]