German Pietism and American Literature of the Late 18th and 19th Centuries
FAIN: FT-259849-18
Patrick M. Erben
University of West Georgia (Carrollton, GA 30118-0001)
Research leading to an
article and book on the influence of German Pietism on late 18th- and 19th-century
American literature.
My current book project investigates the profound yet neglected role of German Pietism in the development of English-language American literature. A 17th and 18th century religious reform movement, Pietism emphasized a personal and emotional relationship between individuals and the Christian redeemer. The transatlantic spread of Pietism by German immigrants such as the Moravians shaped the occupation with sensibility, feeling, and inwardness in the movement from Enlightenment to Romanticism. My project thus endeavors a major scholarly reassessment of canonical and non-canonical authors of late 18th and 19th-century American literature and upends longstanding origin narratives grounded in what Sacvan Bercovitch called The Puritan Origins of the American Self (1975). During the funding period, I would research and write an article titled “The Cult of Zinzendorf in 19th-Century American Literature and Culture,” examining the American popularity of the founder of the Moravian Church.
Associated Products
"The German Pietist Origins of the American Self: Lydia Sigourney and the Cult of Zinzendorf in Early Nineteenth-Century American Literature" (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: "The German Pietist Origins of the American Self: Lydia Sigourney and the Cult of Zinzendorf in Early Nineteenth-Century American Literature"
Author: Patrick M. Erben
Abstract: In this essay, I examine the prominent place held by the writings, thought, missionary work, and overall personality of Count Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf, the founder of the Pietist Moravian Church, in American religious and literary culture of the nineteenth century—decades after his death in 1760. Specifically, the widely popular poet, activist, and educator Lydia Howard Huntley Sigourney credited Zinzendorf for her pacifist convictions and stance against Indian removal. The preface to her eponymous poem “Zinzendorff” reveals a “personal intercourse with that sect of Christians” (5). This essay thus hopes to reveal, via Sigourney’s characterization of Zinzendorf, that German Pietism enjoyed a remarkable purchase among Anglo-phone Americans long after German religious immigrants first sought to establish the precepts of radical German Protestantism throughout the North American colonies. Although both the Moravians and Sigourney have enjoyed a modicum of interest in late 20th and early 21st century scholarship, their stories still appear as outliers in a literary and cultural history and consciousness dominated by the Edwards-to-Emerson narrative.
Date: 10/05/2018
Primary URL:
http://www.obama-institute.com/transatlantic-conversations/Primary URL Description: This url links to the conference website; individual papers (including mine) were distributed only to conference participants and were thus not publicly available. I will gladly provide my pre-circulated paper as a Word or PDF file upon request.
Secondary URL:
http://www.obama-institute.com/wp-content/uploads/Participants.pdfSecondary URL Description: This list of participants shows my name and home institution.
Conference Name: Transatlantic Conversations: New and Emerging Approaches to Early American Studies