Oracles of Empire

Oracles of Empire Poetry, Politics, and Commerce in British America, 1690-1750

by David S. Shields

University of Chicago Press, 1990
Cloth: 978-0-226-75298-3 | Electronic: 978-0-226-75299-0
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226752990.001.0001

AVAILABLE FROM

University of Chicago Press (cloth, ebook)
Amazon Kindle (PDF)
Barnes & Noble Nook
Brytewave (CafeScribe-Follett Higher Ed)
DeGruyter Multi-User Ebook Program
ebrary
EBSCO eBooks (formerly NetLibrary)
Google Play
Kno
Kobo

ABOUT THIS BOOKAUTHOR BIOGRAPHYTABLE OF CONTENTS

ABOUT THIS BOOK

This innovative look at previously neglected poetry in British America represents a major contribution to our understanding of early American culture. Spanning the period from the Glorious Revolution (1690) to the end of King George's War (1750), this study critically reconstitutes the literature of empire in the thirteen colonies, Canada, and the West Indies by investigating over 300 texts in mixed print and manuscript sources, including poems in pamphlets and newspapers.

British America's poetry of empire was dominated by three issues: mercantilism's promise that civilization and wealth would be transmitted from London to the provinces; the debate over the extent of metropolitan prerogatives in law and commerce when they obtruded upon provincial rights and interests; and the argument that Britain's imperium pelagi was an ethical empire, because it depended upon the morality of trade, while the empires of Spain and France were immoral empires because they were grounded upon conquest. In discussing these issues, Shields provides a virtual anthology of poems long lost to students of American literature.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

David S. Shields is associate professor of English at the Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina.

Acknowledgments

Introduction: The Issue of Empire in the Literary Self-Understanding of British Americans

Part One. The British Empire and the Poetry of Commerce

Chapter 1. The Literary Topology of Mercantilism

Chapter 2. The Tide of Empire

Imperium Pelagi

"The Sea-Piece"

The Tribulations of Columbus

Blood and Brine

Chapter 3. The Material Redeemers

The Archetype of Liberty and Law

The Benefactor

Chapter 4. Staples

Trading Weed

Dyer's "Fleece"

"Indico"

"The Sugar-Cane"

Islands of Iniquity

The Deserted Plantation

Heroic Agriculture

Part Two. The Paper Wars Over the Prerogative

Chapter 5. The Problem of the Prerogative

Chapter 6. The Paper Wars in Massachusetts

Old Charter

The Pharaoh of Prerogative

The Passing of the Mantle

The Problem of Old Sarum's Son

"Belcher Apostate"

Chapter 7. The Spread of Boston Principles

The Keeper

The Power of Fable

"The Mock Monarchy or Kingdom of Apes"

Bestial Riddles

Ballad War

The Riddle

Part Three. The Rhetoric of Imperial Animosity

Chapter 8. Empire of Evil

"Zeuma; or, The Love of Liberty" (1729)

The War of Jenkins' Ear

Chapter 9. Gallic Perfidy

Antichrist in the Wilderness

The Violence of Popular Feeling

"Indian Songs of Peace"

The Conquest of Louisbourg

Chapter 10. The Tenuousness of Imperial Identity

The Sum of All Prophecies

Notes

Canada

New England

New York and New Jersey

Pennsylvania

The Chesopean Colonies

The Carolinas

Georgia

West Indies

Metropolitan Writings

Index