Pastoral Care Through Letters in the British Atlantic

Choosing the right words is itself an act of caregiving. Centring on correspondence archives allows pastoral letters to be analysed as a distinct literary genre that contributed in complex ways to early modern practices of caregiving, negotiating political oppression, geographical isolation, and colonial experimentation. Forms of care were solicited, given, and received through the material technology of the letter as a literary artefact. The exchange of letters created new bureaucratic and pastoral structures and entanglements between Protestant believers and others across the British Atlantic and reveals the contentious balance between care and cure within early modern communities. Pastoral care involves exercising power: epistolary exchanges sustain, exploit, shape, and distort the spiritual and material wellbeing of individuals and communities in a landscape fissured by religious division, enslavement, and imperial expansion.

List of contents

Introduction; 1. Contentious caregiving in a divided state; 2. The incorporated company and epistolary care; Conclusion; References.

Summary

This Element allows pastoral letters to be analysed as a distinct literary genre that contributed in complex ways to early modern practices of caregiving, negotiating political oppression, geographical isolation, and colonial experimentation.

Foreword

Letters have power to remake worlds. What is at stake when exercising pastoral care in the form of literary cure?

Product details

• Authors: Alison Searle, Alison (University of Leeds) Searle, Searle Alison
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 30.09.2023
• EAN: 9781108970464
• ISBN: 978-1-108-97046-4
• No. of pages: 75
• Series: Elements in Eighteenth-Century Connections
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900, European History, HISTORY / Europe / General, RELIGION / Religion, Politics & State, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Slavery, LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / General, Religion & politics, Religion and Politics, Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800, Slavery & abolition of slavery, Literary studies: c 1600 to c 1800, Early 18th century c 1700 to c 1750, C 1700 To C 1800, Religious social and pastoral thought and activity, Slavery and abolition of slavery, Religious social & pastoral thought & activity