Governing the Tongue: The Politics of Speech in Early New EnglandGoverning the Tongue explains why the spoken word assumed such importance in the culture of early New England. In a work that is at once historical, socio-cultural, and linguistic, Jane Kamensky explores the little-known words of unsung individuals, and reconsiders such famous Puritan events as the banishment of Anne Hutchinson and the Salem witch trials, to expose the ever-present fear of what the Puritans called "sins of the tongue." But even while dangerous or deviant speech was restricted, as Kamensky illustrates here, godly speech was continuously praised and promoted. Congregations were told that one should lift one's voice "like a trumpet" to God and "cry out and cease not." By placing speech at the heart of New England's early history, Kamensky develops new ideas about the complex relationship between speech and power in both Puritan New England and, by extension, our world today. |
Contents
| 3 | |
The Sweetest Meat the Bitterest Poison | 17 |
A Most Unquiet Hiding Place | 43 |
The Misgovernment of Womans Tongue | 71 |
Publick Fathers and Cursing Sons | 99 |
Saying and Unsaying | 127 |
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accused Ann Hibbens Anne Hutchinson Antinomian argued Assts authority Boston Bradford Calvin Cambridge century chapter 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 hereafter Hibbens's History husband Increase Mather Ipswich John Cotton John Cotton's Sermons John Endecott John Porter John Porter Jr John Winthrop 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 unsaying uttered verbal voice vols William William Perkins Winthrop Papers witch Witch-Hunting witchcraft woman women
Popular passages
Page 4 - I SAID, I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with my tongue: I will keep my mouth with a bridle, while the wicked is before me.