Mittwoch, 23. Mai 2007

Session V - May 23 - Jonathan Edwards and the Great Awakening

Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758)


Information on his -

Life: here, here, and here.

Thought: here, here, and here.

____________

I now realize it was a mistake to focus on his Notes on the Apocalypse, but then, the mistake is made, and gone is the chance to focus rather on, say, some of his excellent sermons - we read through his collage of newspaper items on what he made out as the fall of France and the Vatican, and man - isn't it unexciting and repetitive.

If there is something we can take from the lesson, it is that Edwards' apocalypse was more cosmopolite and suave than Mather's: where Mather was summonig witches on the colonial stage, provoking trials at one place and one time, Edwards is looking into worldly events for proof of the final things to come. Of course, as we noticed - he is very biased in doing so, establishing a record that imparts all heroism to the British and all cowardice to the French (and some to the Italians, of course): they're drinking, starving, corrupt, and burdened with a haphazard king whose only outstanding ability is the exaction of taxes.

And, yes - the whole thing we read is so boring, I think, because it is exactly no more than a collage without personal references, either to himself or to the reader/listener. Once you find out that he is shooting at the French, the text disappears as an object of interest.

It's interesting to note that, to him, history is going on before it ends for good: human progress, in secular and in religious terms, was a real possibility to him, and we'll return to that next time - soon after his death, history was moving mighty fast, with monumental revolutions going on both sides of the Atlantic, and I'll say a few words on the importance of apocalyptic thought for the events of the late 18th century: on independence, tea floating in Boston harbor, and the role of apocalypse in the whole ensemble.

Keine Kommentare: