Postgraduate researcher Lauren Pearl Holmes will present a paper entitled “‘Had I opportunity but to borrow some of the author’s wit:’ Anne Bradstreet and the Sermons of John Woodbridge” at this year’s “Preachers, Hearers, Readers, and Scribes: New Approaches to Early Modern Sermons in Manuscript” conference, held 3-5th October at Harvard Divinity School and the Congregational Library, Cambridge and Boston, MA. The conference will address a diverse range of themes in sermons in manuscript from 1530 to 1715. Speakers will reflect on the use of sermons on different occasions and at key historical moments, as well as consider the perspectives of their authors, speakers, and hearers, their performative context, and their reception.
Lauren’s paper, made possible with funding from the Postgraduate Researcher Conference Support Fund and the School of Arts, Media and Creative Technology (SAMCT) Internal Research Support funds, will expand on the work of her PhD thesis, which aims to show that Anne Bradstreet – America’s first published poet – engaged with and impacted transatlantic intellectual cultures of the time of her writing in the mid-seventeenth century. In so doing, this paper will place two collections of sermon notes into the context of Bradstreet’s authorial voice being appropriated by later preachers.
The abstract for the paper is as follows:
The extent of Anne Bradstreet’s influence on the sociopolitical culture of the late seventeenth century remains critically underresearched. Historically misrepresented as a mere housewife of limited poetical prowess, Bradstreet in fact won considerable acclaim for constructing didactic poetry which sought to enact sociopolitical change and defend the autonomy of the colonial government at a critical moment of its development. Having aided in defending the autonomy of the colony by transporting Bradstreet’s works from New England to London for publication in 1650, her brother-in-law, the minister John Woodbridge, remained a close member of Bradstreet’s literary and intellectual circle until her death in 1672; after her death, her political and theological thought maintained an enduring legacy on his sermon writing. The impact of Bradstreet as a literary and intellectual figure on Woodbridge is observable through the sermon notes of Edward Bromfield and John Richardson on Woodbridge’s sermons (GEMMS-MANUSCRIPT-001787 and GEMMS-MANUSCRIPT-001346). Held in the archives of the Massachusetts Historical Society and the Phillips Library of the Peabody Essex Museum, the sermon notes of Bromfield and Richardson may be read as documenting events in 1683 and 1693 in which Woodbridge utilised the thought and literary conventions of Bradstreet to advocate for the preservation of the colony’s political autonomy. Performed contemporaneously with the impending implementation of the Charter of Massachusetts Bay of 1691, the sermons of Woodbridge may be read through the sermon notes of Bromfield and Richardson as utilising scripture and rhetorical techniques analogous to those present in Bradstreet’s works; this paper will place the contents of these sermon notes into the context of Woodbridge appropriating Bradstreet’s authorial voice.
Further details on the conference can be found here.
Lauren’s paper will be presented at the English Research Seminar “American Studies: Then and Now” on 04 December 2024, 2:30-4:30pm, alongside a paper by Heena Hussain (University of Manchester).
Here are some wonderful images of the Richardson manuscripts with kind permission from the Phillips Library:
Citation: John Richardson sermon notes, SER 75, Phillips Library, Peabody Essex Museum, Rowley MA.