Just for fun, here are some excerpts from the Magnalia's prefatory poems. Same idea as a book jacket with reviews from NY Times or well-known authors!
...such a Scribe as COTTON MATHER;
Whose Piety, whose Pains, and peerless Pen,
Revives New-England's nigh-lost Origin....
His Pen was taken from some Bird of Light,
Addicted to a swift and lofty Flight.
Dearly it loves Art, Air, and Eloquence,
And hates Confinement, save to Truth and Sense.
-Nicholas Noyes, Teacher of the Church at Salem
Thus led by secret sweetest Influence,
You make Returns to God's good Providence:
Recording how that mighty Hand was nigh,
To Trace out Paths not known to mortal Eye,
To those brave Men, that to this Land came o'er,
And plac'd them safe on the Atlantick Shore:
And how the same Hand did them after save,
And say, Return, oft on the Brink o'th' Grave;
And gave them room to spread, and bless'd their Root,
Whence, hung with Fruit, now many Branches shoot.
-Timothy Woodbridge, Minister of Hartford
Immortal Mather! 'tis thy page alone
To Old World minds makes New World wonders known;
And while the solid Earth shall firm remain,
New World and Old World shall thy praise retain.
-Henry Selijns, Pastor of a Dutch Reformed Church at New York (trans. from Latin)
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It makes me want to pen one myself.... Perhaps a fun exercise to try. What would a 21stC blurb for Magnalia be? --lc
ReplyDeleteChristine, you and others might be interested in a conference paper I gave on the Latin prefatory poems. It was published as part of the IANLS conference proceedings:
ReplyDeleteGigliotti, Gilbert L. “Towards a New World Senatus Doctorum: The Liminary Verse of the Magnalia Christi Americana.” Acta Conventus Neo-Latini Bariensis: Proceedings from the Ninth International Congress at Bari. Ed. by Rhoda Schnur, et al. Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1998.
GREAT BLOG, by the way!
Christine--
ReplyDeleteThanks for pointing out these poems. I especially love Selijns dedication to "Immortal Mather"! --jm