Paper 1 on Context
for
English 399: Rhetoric of Religion: Mary Baker Eddy
Instructor: Karen D. Austin * kaustin@shepherd.edu
Shepherdstown, WV 25443
Assignment in Brief
Write a 500+ word paper (2 to 3 pages) that analyzes the role that context plays in one of Eddy's sermons (Pulpit and Press, or Message to the First Church...June 15, 1902).
Assignment in Detail
Here is a suggested writing process for this paper.
1. Read the lecture on context.
2. Skim through Bloom's book The American Religion.
3. Read "Pulpit and Press" and "Message to the First Church...June 15, 1902," taking notes on the context-dependent things she says and the context specific references she makes.
4. Read through the suggested paper topics below and also consider a self-designed topic if something grabs your attention
5. Develop a thesis that is arguable (not obvious, but provable with carefully selected evidence and sound reasoning).
6. Reread the sermons carefully, pulling quotes that you can summarize, paraphrase and quote directly to prove your thesis.
7. Use Bloom where applicable.
8. Revise, Edit, Print, Deliver.
HERE ARE SOME POSSIBLE TOPICS:
Topic A. Eddy: An Uncreated, Knowledgeable, Free and Alone
American Saint?
The broadest context for Eddy is probably "America." She founded
a religion in American during an era of great religious enthusiasm. Write
a paper that argues whether Mary Baker Eddy's sermon (whichever of the two you
choose to analyze) adheres to Bloom's definition of the American Religion.
Bloom writes a definition of American Religion on pages 102 and 103 of his book.
To summarize him, he argues that the American Religion sees 1) the individual as
existing before God's Creation of this world, 2) individuals are free, based on
knowledge and 3) freedom remains a solitary condition. You should probably just
choose one of these three points and come up with a 2 to 3 page paper, but if
you want to discuss two of them or all three, be sure that you have a tight
focus and a relationship between the two or three elements of Bloom's
definition.
Topic B. Does Eddy Share Any Ideas with the American
Transcendentalists?
Some notable contemporaries of Eddy's were the American Romantics, also called
the Transcendentalists. These Transcendentalists (Emerson, Thorough, Douglass,
Whitman, etc.) shared with Eddy a desire to find truth, to find God, and to
become more god-like / divine. Bloom discusses both Emerson and
Whitman as practitioners of the American Religion. Read through some web
sites on Transcendentalism, such as this one from Virginia Commonwealth
University. Or look at a text from either Emerson or Whitman and argue
whether you see Eddy as another example of an American Transcendentalist or does
she differ from Emerson or Whitman in important ways? Consider "Divinity
School Address" for Emerson and "The Noiseless Patient Spider" or
selections from Song of Myself for Whitman.
Topic C. Eddy and Yankee Can-Do, Know How.
Eddy refers to business transactions, inventions, current events, and post-Civil
War reconstruction. How does Eddy embody the stereotype of the Yankee
pragmatic, and how does her materialism (meaning a concern for the material not
an obsession with it) conflict with her preaching about the dominance of Spirit.
(She doesn't argue so much that "Spirit should triumph over Matter" as
much as she argues that "all is Spirit and nothing is Matter.")
If you have read Mark Twain's Yankee in King Arthur's Court, you might
want to draw on this for a demonstration of the Yankee stereotype of Eddy's era.
Or if you've read William Dean Howell's The Rise of Silas Lapham, that
novel (set in the Back Bay of Boston, just where Eddy's church was built!), you
can use Lapham as a model of Yankee pragmatics. Otherwise, you can just
surf the Internet and find a working definition / stereotype for turn-of-the
century Yankee. If you've seen Cheaper by the Dozen, the father in
that film embodies a Yankee stereotype from Eddy's era.
Topic D. Eddy and New Beginnings
Eddy's dedicatory sermon (Pulpit and Press) took place in early January and served to dedicate the completed church building. How did the dedication of the building and the beginning of the New Year influence the content of her sermon? How does she at once embrace the majesty of the building and reject it as trivial? What does Bloom have to offer as insight into how Eddy, as a practitioner of The American Religion, discussed the building that she helped finance.
Topic E. YOUR CHOICE!
If you have an idea of your own, just run it past me. Be sure to discuss context, quote from the sermons, and try to work in at least one quote from Bloom.
Return to English 399 home page