Providence Tales and the Birth O

1ST EDITION 1ST PRINTING. By James D. Hartman, published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999. Publisher's statement: "In colonial America, tales about the capture of English settlers by Native Americans war parties and the captives' subsequent suffering, privations and spiritual fortitude were wildly popular among readers. In these captivity narratives, writers such as Mary Rowlandson, Jonathan Dickson, and John Williams told autobiographical stories that combined images of brutal violence with examples of spirityal fortitude. In their accounts, as well as in similar and equally popular tales of witchcraft, exploration, and shipwreck, lie the roots of a uniquely American literature, providing distinct patterns for later writers, from James Fenimore Cooper to Herman Melville. Despite their importance in the development of American literature, however, the origins of the captivity narrative have until now been largely ignored. In Providence Tales and the Birth of American Literature, James D. Hartman uncovers the genesis of the captivity narrative in the English providence tale and its transformation in the seventeenth century. Accounts of miracles, answered prayers, and divine judgments in the form of natural catastrophes meant to prove the existence of God have been a staple of religious literature. But, as Hartman details, in seventeenth-century England, religious writers were faced with challenges to their faith by the increasingly vital forces of empiricism, skepticism and atheism. Creators of providence tales responded to this challenge by appropriating the language of scientific methodology. They also attempted to broaden their audience by adding violence, sentimentality, melodrama, and other attributes of secular literature to their otherwise spiritual tales."