Puritan Influences in American Literature by Emory Elliott (review)

Book Reviews necessary to the comprehension of mythic discourse. He elucidates the features of mythic thought most perplexing to outsiders: a cyclical conceptualization of time (his 1955 The Myth of the Eternal Return is a classic work on the topic); a willingness to interrelate phenomena rationalists would separate; magic notions of causality. In 1970, Eliade published Tu;o Tales of the Occult. Here, he leads the inexperienced reader on a "field trip" through two exemplary mythic narratives, extracted from the Middle European oral-folkloric tradition and presented as printed fiction. Now he has carried the same idea a step further. The Forbidden Forest, nominally a novel, might better be described as a magic tale elaborated so as to be accessible to the linear, printreading man. It will interest those who follow Eliade's activities and who (altogether legitimately) will read The Forbidden Forest "through" the author's philosophical-ethnological writings. Those who approach the novel qua novel may become discouraged quite quickly. As Jonathan Culler points out in his 1975 Structuralist Poetics, our lack of experience in the reading of mythic discourse makes us uncomfortable and disoriented as readers of texts representative of this mode. Eliade's novel will strike many rationalists as astonishingly slow-paced and meandering in its narrative development. One feels uneasy when several pages pass without apparent introduction of meaningful new information. This characteristic, though, illustrates Eliade's assertions concerning the folkloric mind's construction of time, sequentiality and event. In sum, the novel is valuable as an adjunct to and exemplification of Eliade's scholarly works. It is also of interest as an accommodation into a novelistic framework of alien narrative conventions derivable from folkloric sources. NAOMI LINDSTROM, University of Texas at Austin Emory Elliott, Puritan Influences in American Literature. Urbana, 111.: University of Illinois Press, 1979. 212 p. $12.00. To properly evaluate the impact of Puritanism upon American literature is the purpose of Emory Elliott's second book, a collection of original essays by outstanding scholars in American studies. As Elliott suggests in his Preface, "it is not the purpose of this collection to conclude the study of Puritanism and American literature but to contribute to the beginning of that labor." Readers will discover that this book admirably fulfills its promise. Of the nine essays here, five examine the various aspects of the Puritan mind and art, while four place the writing offive major nineteenth century writers in the context of Puritan influence. In the first essay, Glade Hunsaker probes the role of the writer in the community by contrasting Milton 's view with that of Roger Williams's. The next two essays—Emily Stipes Watts's analysis of Ann Bradstreetand William Scheick's on Edward Taylor—examine the poets' struggles with his place in God's universe. Michael Colacurcio's essay reevaluates Jonathan Edwards' idealism in the history of ideas in the eighteenth century and Elliott's own contribution to 276VOL. 34, NO. 4 (FALL 1980) Book Reviews the volume discusses the use of Puritan rhetoric by Revolutionary orators and pamphleteers. The second set of essays begins with Claudia Johnson's interpretation of Hawthorne s use of the pattern of Puritan conversion, especially as it relates to The Marble Faun. William Howarth analyzes Thoreau's use of Concord as a microcosm in the Journal to reveal his sense of sacred human unity, while Bernard Rosenthal's essay on Melville's Clarel illustrates Melville's use of biblical typology for his own ironic purposes. In the final essay in the collection, a study of Emily Dickinson's use of persona, Nina Baym shows how the belle of Amherst sometimes ironically twisted Puritan imagery in her discussion of man's place in a universe she saw as baffling. All nine essays are first-rate, and despite the diversity of their approaches, contribute much to our understanding of the influence of Puritan thought on American literature. It is through the efforts of young scholars like Emory Elliott that our generation is beginning to recognize the importance of looking to our past for a reassessment of our literary heritage. I recommend it most highly. JEFFREY B. WALKER, Oklahoma State University Robert Folkenflik, Samuel Johnson, Biographer. Ithaca...