- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226037431
- eISBN:
- 9780226037448
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226037448.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
This chapter, which describes the conventional meanings of the language of sensibility held by John and Abigail Adams, their circle and other Americans, analyzes the Adamses' view on the effects of ...
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This chapter, which describes the conventional meanings of the language of sensibility held by John and Abigail Adams, their circle and other Americans, analyzes the Adamses' view on the effects of reading and writing on persons of sensibility, and the meanings that they gave to individual terms signifying the culture of sensibility. It also discusses the concept of impressions, nonverbal signs of sensibility, and the limit of sentimental language.Less
This chapter, which describes the conventional meanings of the language of sensibility held by John and Abigail Adams, their circle and other Americans, analyzes the Adamses' view on the effects of reading and writing on persons of sensibility, and the meanings that they gave to individual terms signifying the culture of sensibility. It also discusses the concept of impressions, nonverbal signs of sensibility, and the limit of sentimental language.
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226037431
- eISBN:
- 9780226037448
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226037448.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
This introductory chapter discusses the theme of this book, which is about the letters exchanged by John and Abigail Adams during the American Revolution. The book focuses on how the Adamses used ...
More
This introductory chapter discusses the theme of this book, which is about the letters exchanged by John and Abigail Adams during the American Revolution. The book focuses on how the Adamses used language to express their feelings, particularly about their being apart. It examines how Abigail and John perpetuated conventional meanings of language about emotions and put them to their own use, and analyzes the emergence and Americanization of the culture expressed by the language of sensibility.Less
This introductory chapter discusses the theme of this book, which is about the letters exchanged by John and Abigail Adams during the American Revolution. The book focuses on how the Adamses used language to express their feelings, particularly about their being apart. It examines how Abigail and John perpetuated conventional meanings of language about emotions and put them to their own use, and analyzes the emergence and Americanization of the culture expressed by the language of sensibility.
G. J. Barker-Benfield
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226037431
- eISBN:
- 9780226037448
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226037448.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
During the many years that they were separated by the perils of the American Revolution, John and Abigail Adams exchanged hundreds of letters. Writing to each other of public events and private ...
More
During the many years that they were separated by the perils of the American Revolution, John and Abigail Adams exchanged hundreds of letters. Writing to each other of public events and private feelings, loyalty and love, revolution and parenting, they wove a tapestry of correspondence that has become a cherished part of American history and literature. With Abigail and John Adams, this book mines those familiar letters to a new purpose: teasing out the ways in which they reflected—and helped transform—a language of sensibility, inherited from Britain but, amid the revolutionary fervor, becoming Americanized. Sensibility—a heightened moral consciousness of feeling, rooted in the theories of such thinkers as Descartes, Locke, and Adam Smith, and including a “moral sense” akin to the physical senses—threads throughout these letters. As the book makes clear, sensibility was the fertile, humanizing ground on which the Adamses not only founded their marriage, but also the “abhorrence of injustice and inhumanity” they and their contemporaries hoped to plant at the heart of the new nation. Bringing together their correspondence with a wealth of fascinating detail about life and thought, courtship and sex, gender and parenting, and class and politics in the revolutionary generation and beyond, the book draws a portrait of a marriage endangered by separation, yet surviving by the same ideas and idealism that drove the revolution itself.Less
During the many years that they were separated by the perils of the American Revolution, John and Abigail Adams exchanged hundreds of letters. Writing to each other of public events and private feelings, loyalty and love, revolution and parenting, they wove a tapestry of correspondence that has become a cherished part of American history and literature. With Abigail and John Adams, this book mines those familiar letters to a new purpose: teasing out the ways in which they reflected—and helped transform—a language of sensibility, inherited from Britain but, amid the revolutionary fervor, becoming Americanized. Sensibility—a heightened moral consciousness of feeling, rooted in the theories of such thinkers as Descartes, Locke, and Adam Smith, and including a “moral sense” akin to the physical senses—threads throughout these letters. As the book makes clear, sensibility was the fertile, humanizing ground on which the Adamses not only founded their marriage, but also the “abhorrence of injustice and inhumanity” they and their contemporaries hoped to plant at the heart of the new nation. Bringing together their correspondence with a wealth of fascinating detail about life and thought, courtship and sex, gender and parenting, and class and politics in the revolutionary generation and beyond, the book draws a portrait of a marriage endangered by separation, yet surviving by the same ideas and idealism that drove the revolution itself.
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226037431
- eISBN:
- 9780226037448
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226037448.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
This chapter examines Abigail Adams' views about public and private life. It shows that the language of sensibility supplied Abigail with the means to protest the suffering that John's absence had ...
More
This chapter examines Abigail Adams' views about public and private life. It shows that the language of sensibility supplied Abigail with the means to protest the suffering that John's absence had caused her as well as to attempt to reconcile herself to it. The chapter also contends that Abigail was not oblivious to the fact that ambition and self-interest could motivate men to take part in public life.Less
This chapter examines Abigail Adams' views about public and private life. It shows that the language of sensibility supplied Abigail with the means to protest the suffering that John's absence had caused her as well as to attempt to reconcile herself to it. The chapter also contends that Abigail was not oblivious to the fact that ambition and self-interest could motivate men to take part in public life.
