The Oracle and the Curse

Download or Read eBook The Oracle and the Curse PDF written by Caleb Smith and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2013-04-30 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle.
The Oracle and the Curse
Author :
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Total Pages : 359
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780674075863
ISBN-13 : 0674075862
Rating : 4/5 (63 Downloads)

Book Synopsis The Oracle and the Curse by : Caleb Smith

Book excerpt: 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.


The Oracle and the Curse Related Books

The Oracle and the Curse
Language: en
Pages: 359
Authors: Caleb Smith
Categories: Literary Criticism
Type: BOOK - Published: 2013-04-30 - Publisher: Harvard University Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

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 stud
The Oracle and the Curse
Language: en
Pages: 282
Authors: Caleb Smith
Categories: Literary Criticism
Type: BOOK - Published: 2013-04-01 - Publisher: Harvard University Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Caleb Smith explores the confessions, trial reports, maledictions, and martyr narratives that juxtaposed law and conscience in antebellum America’s court of p
Oracles, Curses, and Risk Among the Ancient Greeks
Language: en
Pages: 533
Authors: Esther Eidinow
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2007-10-04 - Publisher: Oxford University Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A study of the question tablets from the oracle at Dodona and binding-curse tablets from across the ancient Greek world, These tablets reveal the hopes and anxi
The Curse of Deadman's Forest
Language: en
Pages: 425
Authors: Victoria Laurie
Categories: Juvenile Fiction
Type: BOOK - Published: 2010 - Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Determined to recruit six supernaturally gifted children to defeat a growing evil force, Ian and Theodosia Wigby embark on a life-threatening journey through a
The Oracle
Language: en
Pages: 418
Authors: Clive Cussler
Categories: Fiction
Type: BOOK - Published: 2019 - Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Husband-and-wife treasure-hunters Sam and Remi Fargo search for an ancient scroll which carries a deadly curse. But their mission becomes more complicated when