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Quick links to primary sources: Cotton Mather’s Magnalia Christi Americana

…for learners to be able to describe what conceit is, how some examples from the Magnalia are conceits, and identify 1-2 ways Magnalia differs from other Puritan texts.

1. Consider again this passage from Magnalia about the doves (quoted below). Why is this a conceit, and more importantly, what do YOU find interesting about this passage? What strikes you and what features of Mather’s language are you interested in?
   • Note: you can find a copy of Mather’s Magnalia Christi Americana here: https://archive.org/details/magnaliachristia00math/page/140/mode/1up?view=theater
   • “The Great Basil mentions a Certain Art, of Drawing many Doves, by anointing the Wings of a Few with a Fragrant Ointment, and so sending them abroad that by the Fragrancy of the Ointment they may allure others unto the House, whereof they are themselves the Domesticks. I know not how far it may have any Tendency to draw others unto the Religion hitherto professed and maintained in Harvard-Colledge: But I have here sent forth some of the Doves belonging to that House, with the Ointment of a Good Name upon them. And yet I should not have bestow’d the Ointment of their Embalmed Name, as I have done, if the God of Heaven by first bestowing the Ointment of His Heavenly Grace upon them, had not given them to deserve it…” (Mather Book IV, 140).
2. How is the Magnalia different from other Puritan texts? (you could compare it with the Bay Psalm Book, a sermon, or any other text you know about, or just base our answer on the material from the lecture). And, speculate or reason about WHY you think it is different. Why would Cotton Mather want to write in this way?

Respond to these discussion questions (or other topics of your choosing, relating to the lectures) here: