Governing The Tongue : The Politics of Speech in Early New England: The Politics of Speech in Early New EnglandColonial New Englanders would have found our modern notions of free speech very strange indeed. Children today shrug off harsh words by chanting "sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me," but in the seventeenth century people felt differently. "A soft tongue breaketh the bone," they often said. Governing the Tongue explains why the spoken word assumed such importance in the culture of early New England. Author Jane Kamensky re-examines such famous Puritan events as the Salem witch trials and the banishment of Anne Hutchinson to expose the ever-present fear of what the puritans called "sins of the tongue." But even while dangerous or deviant speech was restricted, Kamensky points out, godly speech was continuously praised and promoted. Congregations were told that one should ones voice "like a trumpet" to God and "cry out and cease not." By placing speech at the heart of familiar stories of Puritan New England, Kamensky develops new ideas about the relationship between speech and power both in Puritan New England and, by extension, in our world today. |
Contents
Introduction | 3 |
THREE | 51 |
The Misgovernment of Womans Tongue | 71 |
FOUR | 82 |
Publick Fathers and Cursing Sons | 99 |
Saying and Unsaying | 127 |
Other editions - View all
Governing the Tongue: The Politics of Speech in Early New England Jane Kamensky Limited preview - 1999 |
Governing the Tongue: The Politics of Speech in Early New England Jane Kamensky Limited preview - 1997 |
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accused American Ann Hibbens Anne Hutchinson Antinomian argued Assts authority Boston Bradford Calvin Cambridge century Church civil Colonial colony's confession congregation Cotton Mather court crime cultural cursing Defamation devil discourse early modern early New England ears elders English Essex County Essex File Papers female gender God's godly heard Hibbens's History husband Increase Mather Indian Ipswich John Cotton John Cotton's Sermons John Endecott John Porter John Porter Jr John Winthrop Journal Keayne language leaders linguistic magistrates Magnalia Christi Americana Mary Mass ministers misspeakers mouth neighbors Norton Note-book of John offenders Perkins Plymouth Plantation preachers preaching Presentment public apology punishments Puritan Quakers Records Recs reprinted New York rhetoric Richard Salem Samuel scolding seventeenth Seventeenth-Century New England silence slander social Society speech Story Thomas Thomas Morton tion tongue trials University Press uttered verbal voice vols William William Perkins Winthrop Papers witch Witch-Hunting witchcraft woman women