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Writing "To Conquer All Things": Cotton Mather's Magnalia Christi Americana and the Quandary of Copia

Writing "To Conquer All Things": Cotton Mather's Magnalia Christi Americana and the Quandary of... jan stievermann Universität Tübingen Writing ``To Conquer All Things'' Cotton Mather's Magnalia Christi Americana and the Quandary of Copia While he thus devoured books, it came to pass that books devoured him. --Cotton Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana Ever since its first publication in 1702, critics have regularly censured the Magnalia Christi Americana for being a vainglorious attempt at displaying the author's rhetorical brilliance and universal erudition. Mather's belated piece of colonial or ``Puritan Baroque'' (Warren 112) was often branded as an overly ornate conglomerate of learned references lacking in originality and coherence.1 Taking up arguments already used against Mather in his own time, the derogatory judgment which William Tudor, the first editor of the North American Review, passed on the book in 1818 probably left the most enduring mark. His caustic comment on the Magnalia's ``numerous quotations in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew which rise up like so many decayed, hideous stumps [. . .] to deform the surface,'' and his consequent disapproval of Mather as a ``pedantick, and garrulous writer'' have continued to reverberate through the negative responses of many readers well into the twentieth century (Tudor 256, 272).2 It is only during the last few decades that http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Early American Literature University of North Carolina Press

Writing "To Conquer All Things": Cotton Mather's Magnalia Christi Americana and the Quandary of Copia

Early American Literature , Volume 39 (2) – Aug 11, 2004

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Publisher
University of North Carolina Press
Copyright
Copyright © 2004 by The University of North Carolina Press.
ISSN
1534-147X
Publisher site
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Abstract

jan stievermann Universität Tübingen Writing ``To Conquer All Things'' Cotton Mather's Magnalia Christi Americana and the Quandary of Copia While he thus devoured books, it came to pass that books devoured him. --Cotton Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana Ever since its first publication in 1702, critics have regularly censured the Magnalia Christi Americana for being a vainglorious attempt at displaying the author's rhetorical brilliance and universal erudition. Mather's belated piece of colonial or ``Puritan Baroque'' (Warren 112) was often branded as an overly ornate conglomerate of learned references lacking in originality and coherence.1 Taking up arguments already used against Mather in his own time, the derogatory judgment which William Tudor, the first editor of the North American Review, passed on the book in 1818 probably left the most enduring mark. His caustic comment on the Magnalia's ``numerous quotations in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew which rise up like so many decayed, hideous stumps [. . .] to deform the surface,'' and his consequent disapproval of Mather as a ``pedantick, and garrulous writer'' have continued to reverberate through the negative responses of many readers well into the twentieth century (Tudor 256, 272).2 It is only during the last few decades that

Journal

Early American LiteratureUniversity of North Carolina Press

Published: Aug 11, 2004

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