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Puritan providences in Stowe's 'The Pearl of Orr's Island': the legacy of Cotton Mather. (Harriet Beecher Stowe)

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From: Studies in American Fiction
Date: 19940322
Author:Baker, Dorothy Z.

Harriet Beecher Stowe's 'The Pearl of Orr's Island' was structurally and thematically influenced by the tales of divine providence in Cotton Mather's 'Magnalia Christi Americana.' Divine providence, which was a critical element in much of early American literature, was central to Stowe's novel. She evoked the Puritan worldview by using the rhetorical themes of Mather's work. Stowe's 19th-century novel reflects Calvinistic principles in its account of a unified community that strives toward spiritual perfection.

In her semi-autobiographical novel, Poganuc People, Harriet Beecher Stowe ...

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