Covenant and Republic

Philip Gould investigates the cultural politics of historical memory in the early American republic, specifically the historical literature of Puritanism. By situating historical writing about Puritanism in the context of the cultural forces of Republicanism and liberalism, his study reconsiders the emergence of the historical romance in the 1820s, before the work of Nathaniel Hawthorne. This book not only aids the Americanist recovery of this literary period, but also brings together literary studies of historical fiction and historical scholarship of early Republican political culture; in doing so, it offers a persuasive new account of just what is at stake when one reads literature of and about the past.

• Expands the American canon to include neglected writers such as Catharine Sedgwick • Offers a rich, interdisciplinary treatment of literary and cultural history • Brings the interests of Revolutionary era historical studies to the literature of the early nineteenth century

Introduction; 1. The new Ebenezer: republican virtue, the puritan fathers, and early national history-writing; 2. Catharine Sedgwick’s ‘Recital’ of the Pequot War; 3. Refashioning the Republic: gender, ideology, and the politics of virtue in Hobomok and Hope Leslie; 4. The Hive of America: James Fenimore Cooper’s The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish and the History of King Philip’s War; 5. Witch-hunting and the politics of reason; Notes; Index.