The Oracle and the Curse : A Poetics of Justice from the Revolution to the Civil War / Caleb Smith.
Smith, Caleb, author.
2013
PS169.L37 S63 2013
Available Online

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Title The Oracle and the Curse : A Poetics of Justice from the Revolution to the Civil War / Caleb Smith.
Author Smith, Caleb, author.
ISBN 9780674075849
DOI https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674075849
Published Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, [2013]
Copyright ©2013
Language English
Language Note In English.
Description 1 online resource
Other Standard Identifiers 10.4159/harvard.9780674075849 doi
Call Number PS169.L37 S63 2013
Summary Condemned to hang after his raid on Harper's Ferry, John Brown prophesied that the crimes of a slave-holding land would be purged away only with blood. A study of omens, maledictions, and inspired invocations, The Oracle and the Curse examines how utterances such as Brown's shaped American literature between the Revolution and the Civil War. In nineteenth-century criminal trials, judges played the role of law's living oracles, but offenders were also given an opportunity to address the public. When the accused began to turn the tables on their judges, they did so not through rational arguments but by calling down a divine retribution. Widely circulated in newspapers and pamphlets, these curses appeared to channel an otherworldly power, condemning an unjust legal system and summoning readers to the side of righteousness. Exploring the modes of address that communicated the authority of law and the dictates of conscience in antebellum America's court of public opinion, Caleb Smith offers a new poetics of justice which assesses the nonrational influence that these printed confessions, trial reports, and martyr narratives exerted on their first audiences. Smith shows how writers portrayed struggles for justice as clashes between human law and higher authority, giving voice to a moral protest that transformed American literature.
Access Note Access limited to authorized users.
System Details Note Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
Digital File Characteristics text file PDF
Source of Description Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 08. Jul 2019)
In E-BOOK GESAMTPAKET / COMPLETE PACKAGE 2013
E-BOOK PACKAGE LITERATURE 2013
E-BOOK PAKET LITERATURWISSENSCHAFT 2013
HUP Complete eBook Package 2011-2014
HUP eBook Package 2013
HUP eBook Package Backlist 2000-2013
HUP eBook Package Backlist 2000-2014
HUP eBook Package Backlist 2000-2015
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Frontmatter
Contents
Preface
Introduction
1 Oracles of Law
2 Oracles of God
3 Blasphemy "At the Court of Hell"
4 Evil Speaking, "A Bridle for the Unbridled Tongue"
5 The Curse of Slavery
6 Words of Fire
Epilogue
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index

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