|
|
Article: Writing "to conquer all things": cotton Mather's Magnalia Christi Americana and the quandary of copia.(Critical Essay)
- Article from:
- Early American Literature
- Article date:
- March 22, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 University of North Carolina Press. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
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 ...