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George Dyson, The Canterbury Pilgrims

David Manning

in Vaughan Williams on Music

Just as Johannes Brahms went to the Lutheran Bible to appeal to his fellow countrymen in one mood, so George Dyson in a very different mood goes to the great English classic Geoffrey Chaucer to help ... More

Just as Johannes Brahms went to the Lutheran Bible to appeal to his fellow countrymen in one mood, so George Dyson in a very different mood goes to the great English classic Geoffrey Chaucer to help him to suggest that side of England which is shrewd and gay. In Dyson's music the brilliant, witty, and sympathetic word pictures of Chaucer receive their musical counterpart, and just as certain phrases stand out in the poet and have become household words, so in Dyson's music in The Canterbury Pilgrims, the Monk, the Nun, the Scholar, the Merchant, the Shipman, the wife of Bath, the poor Parson, and the Host stand in musical notation until at last the procession fades away into silence with the opening words of the Knight's tale. This end is a real inspiration and the theme which accompanies it is of great originality for the very reason that it appears strangely familiar.Less

The Polish Pilgrims and the Operatic Imperative

Jonathan D. Bellman

in Chopin's Polish Ballade Op. 38 as Narrative of National Martyrdom

When it first appeared, Chopin's Second Ballade was accorded such labels as “Polish Ballade” and “Pilgrims’ Ballade” by early hearers. The composer's beloved native land was in a desperate situation, ... More

When it first appeared, Chopin's Second Ballade was accorded such labels as “Polish Ballade” and “Pilgrims’ Ballade” by early hearers. The composer's beloved native land was in a desperate situation, having gradually ceded its independence to the Russians, who had become political puppetmasters and an ever‐present military threat. After the unsuccessful attempt at rebellion in late 1830 that left the country eviscerated and much of the intelligentsia fleeing for their lives, the absent Chopin felt Poland's turmoil keenly, fearing for friends and loved ones and cursing his inability to join the patriotic resistance. The culture of the Parisian Polish émigré community—a community with which Chopin was generally associated, and for which he and the poet Adam Mickiewicz were considered psalmists, was characterized by a quasi‐biblical sense of fate and mission, although differences within it prevented a unified political voice from ever emerging. Significant figures within this community and other of Chopin's artistic friends pressured the composer to compose an opera on a Polish subject, telling Poland's story to the world and galvanizing widespread audience interest and political support.Less

: The Family in Comparative Perspective

John Demos

in A Little Commonwealth: Family Life in Plymouth Colony

This concluding chapter sums up the key findings of this study on the family of the Pilgrim settlers in Plymouth Colony. From the very beginning of settlement at Plymouth, the family was nuclear in ... More

This concluding chapter sums up the key findings of this study on the family of the Pilgrim settlers in Plymouth Colony. From the very beginning of settlement at Plymouth, the family was nuclear in its basic composition, and it has not changed in this respect ever since. The typical household usually consists of one adult couple and their own children, and sometimes a servant or aged grandparents. The findings suggest that during this period, the family was considered a school, a vocational institute, a house of correction, and a welfare institute.Less

: An Historical Survey of Plymouth Colony

John Demos

in A Little Commonwealth: Family Life in Plymouth Colony

This introductory chapter explains the coverage of this book, which is about the family of the Pilgrims in Plymouth Colony. It explains the reasons for undertaking this study and discusses the ... More

This introductory chapter explains the coverage of this book, which is about the family of the Pilgrims in Plymouth Colony. It explains the reasons for undertaking this study and discusses the voyages and experiences of Pilgrim settlers from Scrooby, England, before they reached the New World. The book examines the Pilgrims' housing, furnishings, family relationships, master-and-servant relations, and coming of age traditions.Less

Conclusion

Stephen Bowman

in The Pilgrims Society and Public Diplomacy, 1895-1945

The conclusion summarises the book’s argument that the Pilgrims acted in the realm of public diplomacy in an attempt to influence foreign and international relations by engaging with foreign publics. ... More

The conclusion summarises the book’s argument that the Pilgrims acted in the realm of public diplomacy in an attempt to influence foreign and international relations by engaging with foreign publics. These actions characterise public diplomacy as it is understood today and, indeed, the Pilgrims’ activities helped formulate that characterisation in the first place. By the end of the period covered by the book other public diplomacy actors had become more important than the Pilgrims, but the Society’s history up until the 1940s demonstrates how it laid the groundwork for focused governmental public diplomacy programmes. The book concludes with the contention that the Pilgrims Society was an elitist mouthpiece for an interventionist and imperialist Anglo-American world order.Less

The Ritual Meeting of Two Cultures

Betty Booth Donohue

in Bradford's Indian Book: Being the True Roote & Rise of American Letters as Revealed by the Native Text Embedded in Of Plimoth Plantation

When Samoset (Abenaki) walked into Plymouth Colony in March of 1621, he announced an unexpected meeting between the Pilgrims and the local Algonquians who were led by the Massasoit Osamequin. The ... More

When Samoset (Abenaki) walked into Plymouth Colony in March of 1621, he announced an unexpected meeting between the Pilgrims and the local Algonquians who were led by the Massasoit Osamequin. The following day, he returned to Plymouth with five Natives in regalia, who ritually prepared the designated meeting ground by dancing, singing, and making corn and tobacco offerings. This gathering was intentionally scheduled to coincide with the vernal equinox, an important ceremonial time for agricultural Algonquians. For both parties, the parley was portentous for Native–European relations and for Plymouthean survival. At this meeting, the Pilgrims negotiated for the Patuxet land on which they were living; they made a non-aggression pact with the Wampanoags; and they agreed to have Tisquantum (Squanto) and Hobomok live with them inside the palisade.Less

Bradford's Ancient Members' & “A Case of Buggery … Amongst Them”

Jonathan Goldberg

in Sodometries: Renaissance Texts, Modern Sexualities

The combination of forward-moving chronicle and backward-glancing composition that produces Bradford's text, Franklin argues, offers a “counterpoint between the ideal and the real” written along the ... More

The combination of forward-moving chronicle and backward-glancing composition that produces Bradford's text, Franklin argues, offers a “counterpoint between the ideal and the real” written along the axes of inclusion and exclusion; in attempting to represent the community of Pilgrims as insulated and unified in its goals and beliefs, Bradford's story is continually undone by all those forces represented as outside that exclusive sphere. By the end, Franklin writes, Bradford “is forced to see how hard it is to attribute inner tensions solely to figures who presumably are outside the colony.”Less

Periodical Public Festivals, & c.

Edward William Lane and Jason Thompson

in An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians

This and the following two chapters describe the many public festivals celebrated in Cairo, starting off in the first month of Muslim year, Moharram. This chapter explains that this was a period ... More

This and the following two chapters describe the many public festivals celebrated in Cairo, starting off in the first month of Muslim year, Moharram. This chapter explains that this was a period considered blessed and when alms were given, but was also associated with superstitions about the jinn. The tenth of Moharram is Youm al-Ashoura, the day al-Hussein was martyred, and many would fast on this day. Descriptions of the food, street celebrations, and religious rituals that took place are given. Next, it turns to the return to Cairo of the caravan of pilgrims from the Hajj to Mecca and the procession of the Mahmal to the Citadel. This took place at the end of Safar, the second Muslim month, and this chapter includes the author’s account of this occasion in 1824. Last in this chapter is Mulid al-Nabi, the Prophet’s birthday, in the third month. The performers, processions, entertainers (reciters, dancing girls, etc., as described in previous chapters), are described, as is the zikr and darwishes’ rituals. Translations and musical notation are included too.Less

United States of America

in Culture and Management in the Americas

This chapter provides an overview of the history of the United States, starting with the breakup from England and proceeding with the arrival of the Pilgrims and the first successful colony at ... More

This chapter provides an overview of the history of the United States, starting with the breakup from England and proceeding with the arrival of the Pilgrims and the first successful colony at Plymouth, in today's Massachusetts. It then traces the significance of the transcendentalist movement and the birth of the American nation after the Civil War, its westward expansionism, and its efforts toward unification. It examines how these efforts help shape the American character and the persistence of regional differences between the nation's North and South, focusing on the Little Rock crisis involving the desegregation of schools. The chapter also looks at the roots of those regional differences by discussing their styles of land distribution and organization of production. By means of these different cultural manifestations, the chapter approximates cultural attitudes of the Southern United States to those of Latin America. It argues that Latin Americans are relatively unfamiliar to management as practiced in the United States today.Less

How Culture Shaped Options in the New World

in Culture and Management in the Americas

This chapter examines how culture shaped options in the New World, focusing on the differences between the Pilgrims who landed in North America and those in Latin America related to the indigenous ... More

This chapter examines how culture shaped options in the New World, focusing on the differences between the Pilgrims who landed in North America and those in Latin America related to the indigenous people—and what they would later do to heal the initial severance. It discusses the origins and the significance of the American Thanksgiving celebration, not only because there is no similar event in Latin America but also because it represents deliberate socially integrative policies in the United States that have not been developed by Latin Americans. Those integrative efforts also give salience to different attitudes regarding the poor, relieving poverty, and the meaning of individualism to both Latin Americans and North Americans. After analyzing the relationship between individualism and egalitarianism in both North and Latin America, the chapter considers similarities between Latin Americans and North Americans, specifically with U.S. Southerners.Less

Hunger and cannibalism: James Hogg’s deconstruction of Scottish military masculinities in The Three Perils of Man or War, Women, and Witchcraft!

Barbara Leonardi

in Martial Masculinities: Experiencing and Imagining the Military in the Long Nineteenth Century

This chapter contends that hunger and cannibalism are extended metaphors that James Hogg utilises in his novel The Three Perils of Man (1822) to denounce the human losses in the Napoleonic Wars and ... More

This chapter contends that hunger and cannibalism are extended metaphors that James Hogg utilises in his novel The Three Perils of Man (1822) to denounce the human losses in the Napoleonic Wars and to convey an indirect critique of the violent death of so many millions in the campaign of Buonaparte. In so doing, Hogg deconstructs the potent stereotype of Highland masculinity, so pivotal in the militaristic discourse of the British Empire. Hogg exposes the ideology of self-sacrifice of the British soldier explicitly in two poetical works: ‘The Pilgrims of the Sun’ (1815) and ‘The Field of Waterloo’ (1822), the first published and the second composed in the same year of Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo, while conveying the same critique more implicitly some years later in Perils of Man, where the hunger for meat is a ubiquitous trope meant to expose the destructiveness of tyrannical power.Less

Introduction

Stephen Bowman

in The Pilgrims Society and Public Diplomacy, 1895-1945

The introduction provides a grounding in the diplomatic history of Anglo-American relations and surveys the main events of the so-called ‘Great Rapprochement’ between the two countries, including the ... More

The introduction provides a grounding in the diplomatic history of Anglo-American relations and surveys the main events of the so-called ‘Great Rapprochement’ between the two countries, including the Alaskan Boundary Dispute, Britain’s response to the Spanish-American War in 1898, and the US’s subsequent attitude to Britain’s war with the Boers. The introduction analyses the concept of ‘Anglo-Saxonism’ and discusses the ways in which it was important both to the Pilgrims Society and to official Anglo-American relations. The introduction also provides a chapter by chapter breakdown of the rest of the book and outlines the argument that while the Pilgrims never set the agenda for official Anglo-American relations it nevertheless played a leading role in public diplomacy and, by extension, in how people have thought about how Britain and the United States have related to each other.Less

Columbian Exchange

Elaine G. Breslaw

in Lotions, Potions, Pills, and Magic: Health Care in Early America

This chapter examines how the Columbian Exchange decimated the Indian population in the Americas due to a variety of illnesses originating in the Old World. The misfortunes of the Indians began in ... More

This chapter examines how the Columbian Exchange decimated the Indian population in the Americas due to a variety of illnesses originating in the Old World. The misfortunes of the Indians began in 1620, when the Pilgrims, religious exiles from England and Holland, set foot at the Massachusetts coast. The Pilgrims became the first Europeans to successfully plant a settlement in New England. Most commentaries at the time of first contact between the Europeans and the Indians describe the latter as healthy, a condition that would change dramatically shortly afterward. Sometime between 1616 and 1617, an unidentified plague wreaked havoc on the Indians and eventually killed close to 90 percent of the coastal population. Timothy L. Bratton concluded that the epidemic was most likely caused by smallpox. The initial ravages of smallpox were followed by a host of new infectious diseases brought by the Europeans, including respiratory ailments, measles, and typhoid, for which the Native Americans had no immunity.Less

Promoting Paradise, Ordering Wilderness: Topographical Optimism Meets Agricultural Reality

Zachary McLeod Hutchins

in Inventing Eden: Primitivism, Millennialism, and the Making of New England

Chapter 2 engages recent environmental criticism, tracing a transition of terms describing New England landscapes from John Smith’s present “paradise” to the “hideous and desolate wilderness” of ... More

Chapter 2 engages recent environmental criticism, tracing a transition of terms describing New England landscapes from John Smith’s present “paradise” to the “hideous and desolate wilderness” of William Bradford’s Pilgrims and the prospective “Paradise” of Cotton Mather. New England colonists’ initial optimism was enabled by the evolution of cosmography and dramatic changes to North American flora and fauna occasioned by Native American smallpox epidemics. This paradisiacal mythos, in the 1620s and 1630s, stemmed from actual ecological shifts as well as a belief in divine promises associated with “empty,” depopulated lands and a confidence in the transformative power of English agriculture. After the first two decades of English occupation, when a temporary boom in game populations and indigenous produce subsided; when the landscape failed to blossom under colonial plows; when the Antinomian Controversy and Pequot War made the Puritan claim to divine promises suspect, this belief in the present paradisiacal potential of the New England landscape faded.Less

A Model for Christian and Civil Government

Steven K. Green

in Inventing a Christian America: The Myth of the Religious Founding

Chapter 2 considers the claim that various political principles underlying republican government are directly traceable to the Puritans. The chapter examines the role of the Puritans and Calvinist ... More

Chapter 2 considers the claim that various political principles underlying republican government are directly traceable to the Puritans. The chapter examines the role of the Puritans and Calvinist ideology in the nation’s founding. It explores the claim that Puritan-Calvinist thought and patterns represented the origins of the American political self and assesses the role played by Alexis de Tocqueville in promoting the concept of a Puritan origin of republican principles. The argument is that while Puritan and Calvinist ideas informed the intellectual discussion of that time, those ideas had already been subsumed into the much larger philosophical milieu within which the Founders operated. Accordingly Revolutionary ideas of American government cannot be seen as distinctively religious.Less

The Birth of a Myth

Steven K. Green

in Inventing a Christian America: The Myth of the Religious Founding

Chapter 5 examines the creation of the myth of America’s Christian origins in the early nineteenth century. It discusses the impact of the Second Great Awakening, the deification of George ... More

Chapter 5 examines the creation of the myth of America’s Christian origins in the early nineteenth century. It discusses the impact of the Second Great Awakening, the deification of George Washington, early revolutionary histories, claims of Christianity forming part of the law, and the rehabilitation of the Puritans. The idea of America’s religiously inspired founding was a consciously created myth constructed by the second generation of Americans in their quest to forge a national identity, one that would reinforce their ideals and aspirations for the new nation. This process of reinterpreting the founding began as early as the late 1790s but gained momentum in the second decade of the following century as a new generation of leaders arose who had little first-hand knowledge of the founding period. In seeking to construct a national identity that conformed to their own religious sentimentalities and political aspirations, they invented a myth of America’s Christian past. This narrative coalesced completely by the 1830s.Less

Introduction

Francis J. Bremer

in One Small Candle: The Story of the Plymouth Puritans and the Beginning of English New England

This book makes a series of arguments that challenge the standard interpretation of the Pilgrim story and the influence of Plymouth on the colonization of New England and the history of the United ... More

This book makes a series of arguments that challenge the standard interpretation of the Pilgrim story and the influence of Plymouth on the colonization of New England and the history of the United States. Those who are commonly referred to as Pilgrims are presented as members of the broader English puritan movement. Lay leadership such as that of William Brewster was central to the forming and conduct of congregational churches. These believers recognized that “further light” might always provide further insight into God’s designs. And Plymouth’s role in shaping the religious and cultural institutions of Massachusetts were more significant than previously realized.Less