Talk:Robert Calef/Archive 1

Archive 1

Comments on the July 2017 edits by Lewismr

For the most part, the edits have greatly improved the article. I especially liked the comments on "dissenting academies." This at least hints at an answer to the mystery of how Calef, an amateur, could have developed his brilliant, satirical writing style to the degree evident in his book.

I do disagree with a few of your edits, however. First, there is the abridgement of Samuel Eliot Morison's colorful "tin can" quote. As edited, it ends with the phrase "'pages' of history" instead of his actual words "pages of superficial and popular historians" which changes Morison's meaning significantly. I have taken the liberty of reverting to the original quotation.

I found your addition of a section on Twentieth Century Revision to be interesting, especially the addition of the numerous good references. However, there are a few arguments you make that I do not find well-supported. For example, you seem to call into question George Lyman Kittredge's claim that "Calef came too late to be relevant to our discussion." His assertion is based on the fact that public opinion began to change as the executions continued with public support for the proceedings largely evaporated by the time the Courts of Oyer and Terminer were dissolved by Governor Phips (on October 29, 1692). Calef's writing did not begin until nearly a year later (as you note). By that time, there was no longer any real danger of further trials. Thus Calef's main impact was to "tie a tin can" to Cotton Mather as noted by Morison.

With respect to Chadwick Hansen's handling of Calef, I, like you, find it highly biased. Hansen's bias is evident even in such simple statements as "[Calef] seems to be a weaver, although he liked to give himself the more dignified title of merchant" and "he fancied himself a wit." Hansen agrees with Mather that Calef's Margaret Rule narrative makes Mather appear "smutty." He further makes the claim that Calef's language would lead "anybody reading these statements [to] assume that she was naked from the waist up." This claim of Hansen's is unsupportable -- I certainly did not interpret Calef's passage this way. Nevertheless, I believe that any 17th century reader, and most modern readers would find Mather's actions, as described by Calef, improper. This was Mather's (and Hansen's) main point.

With respect to your claim that Hansen must have misunderstood the meaning of the word "bed-clothes," I do not think that argument is necessary or supportable. Certainly anyone who has read a 19th century novel would know the meaning of the word. You state that the Oxford English Dictionary calls the word archaic, but I do not find that in my edition, which only states that the singular "bedcloth" is obsolete.

Another general point:

With respect to the article as a whole, I think a section on Calef's "style" would be a worthwhile addition. I think the resonance of his writing to the modern ear, based in equal parts on his rationalism and on his biting wit, are what makes him an enduring and entertaining read. I find it curious, but not much discussed by historians (except by Calef), that Cotton Mather, an eminent, ordained minister, does not engage with Calef on his "doctrinals", but contents himself primarily with defending his (Mather's) actions. Given Mather's intelligence, education, social class, occupation, and experience as a writer, wouldn't it seem that "a little writing" on the doctrinals would provide Mather a significant advantage over a modestly-educated tradesman? -- yet Mather avoids it and Calef seems to get the better of him at every turn. Sempronius4 (talk) 01:39, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for these thoughtful comments and critiques. This transparency is what I love bout wikip. I'm away from desk but will respond soon. ML (talk) 16:23, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

Response to Comments by Sempronius4

Thank you again Sempronius4. Also prior to this, I had already noticed your specific and helpful contributions to this page.

Thanks for the words on Dissenting Academies. I was waffling after adding due to reading Steven Greenblatt’s fine discussion of Shakespeare’s grammar-school-only education and also thinking about Ben Franklin’s education at the printing press. It does seem germaine though, to the way Calef focusses on education and mentions Latin. Regarding our discussion below, is also possible Kittredge did not fully appreciate this subtlties in Calef’s criticism of education, perhaps specific to the way the college was being run by the Mathers at this time.

I'm now going to block out two of the topics you mentioned above in case you or others want to respond and/or revise, below.

Samuel Eliot Morison

For the "tin can" quote, P Miller is cited as paraphrasing Morison but on that page of P Miller’s book, Miller disagrees with Morison on those exact words (the ones I cut) making it a convoluted quote. Maybe it would be best to simply try to dig up original quote from Morison?

@Lewismr: The tin can quote that Perry Miller references came from Samuel Eliot Morison's book, The Puritan Pronaos, p. 251, published in 1936. I will provide a few additional lines from Morison's book to provide context:

[In 1688], Cotton Mather took the oldest [Goodwin] girl, aged thirteen, into his family, soothed her and prayed with her as a Christian psychiatrist might do in a similar case of nerves today, kept secret the names of the persons she accused, and cured her, completely. If the girls who started the trouble at Salem had been similarly dealt with, that frenzy would not have gone so far as it did. Unfortunately Mather’s vanity at this favorable outcome of his efforts was such that he rushed into print with his "Memorable Providences" (Boston, 1689) describing the Goodwin case, with all its symptoms in detail; and just as newspaper stories of crime seem to stimulate more people to become criminals, so "Memorable Providences" may well have had a pernicious power of suggestion in that troubled era. That it had any such purpose cannot honestly be maintained by anyone who takes the trouble to read the book; but it is always convenient to have a scapegoat to take the guilt of a community after it has gone mad. Robert Calef, who had it in for Cotton Mather, tied a tin can to him after the frenzy was over; and it has rattled and banged through the pages of superficial and popular historians. Even today the generally accepted version of the Salem tragedy is that Cotton Mather worked it up, aided and abetted by his fellow parsons, in order to drive people back to church.

Yet the terrible outbreak at Salem Village in 1692 needed no clerical belief in witchcraft to bring it about.

I am happy with the main article as it now stands using the more extended quotation from Perry Miller's book. Sempronius4 (talk) 02:50, 2 September 2017 (UTC)

@Sempronius4: thank you for providing this fuller quote. I have blocked out SE Morison above for further discussion and to allow contributions from others.

SE Morison comes across as a wonderful advocate for CM in that section Sempronius4 quoted above. RE CM: We can easily read Memorable Providences to verify whether or not this is a fair portrait, and the most important section would seem to be the "Notandum" tacked onto the end, where CM writes of his disappointment that the children had not been cured by prayer but this leads him to suppose God had allowed this for the further "detection and destruction of more belonging to that hellish knot." (p 41 of Boston ed linked above, it is section just before anti- quaker "Appendix"). We can also look at CM's industry with the Cambridge Association formation meetings the following year, October 1690, entertaining Rev Parris, and putting forth a new printing of the ancient laws, at a time when the rest of the government was busy worrying about war with Quebec. Hale's later (1699, see Burr) description of the influences in Salem is also important if understated. We now have CM's correspondence from Aug 4, Sept 2, 1692. And it is key to remember that all capital decisions flowed through Boston. When Phips dissolved the court of O&T and followed it up reprieve, all stopped, to CM's keen disappointment as captured in his letter Oct 20, 1692.

SE Morison is a curious case. On Commonwealth Ave in Boston, there is a cool statue of him sitting on a rock wearing a sailor's raincoat. He seems to have specialized in maritime history. It is disappointing when his statements about the Mathers do not pass muster and are not supported by the archives. Morison's views seem to have notably changed from the late 1920s to mid-1930s. Kittredge (see below) and his mentee Kenneth B Murdock both came from the Harv. English Dept. but Morison was in the Harv. History department. GL Burr was from Cornell History dept and eloquently rebutted Kittredge's 1907 essay in his own from 1911 and followed it up with the 1914 book of Narratives that I would say is the single most cited work on this subject no matter one's perspective. Murdock and TJ Holmes were actively publishing (often at Harv U press) on the Mather's behalf 1924-8, and also claiming the majority opinion, a major stretch it would seem at the time. SE Morison himself does not seem to have been on board with those 3 as we can see with "Builders of the Bay Colony" (1928 [correction 1930Lewismr (talk) 14:18, 5 September 2017 (UTC)]) which lists neither John Cotton nor Richard Mather nor their descendants on the roster of Builders, and in the afterward Morison says, regarding Magnalia, that though CM was not above "suppresio veri" he disagrees with most historians on the extent of CM's unreliablity. Feint praise or a backhanded compliment. This is also around the time of Morison's helping to form the NEQ [1928] with a fine editorial statement, and publishing two essays that year by Viola F Barnes (who I admire) which accuse CM of a false characterization of Phips. By the following decade, SE Morison's name was on works like Harv in 17th C. that to me seem to capture the Kittredge enthusiasm for covering "the nakedness of their father" and rise to a level of suppresio veri-tas. See Morison's mischaracterizes the 1692 meetings of the Cambridge Association. As noted below, Murdock's father was running Harvard press and Kittredge was his industrious righthand man before running the press solo for 2 years (see book by Max T Hall). I get the feeling that Morison felt the passionate enthusiasm coming from those 3 men and simply decided it was easier to join than fight. Some of his later statements on this issue do not seem sober, like one where he says (about M. Rule I believe) CM "did manage to cure that wench in Boston."

Morison's "popular and superficial" claim can be contrasted with the distinguished list of names/quotes compiled in the main Calef article thru 18th and 19th c.

Morison's innuendo that Calef "had it in for" CM is not supportable and seems to have no basis in the historical record. [This is like claiming Woodward and Bernstein "had it in" for Nixon, or Seymour Hersch "had it in" for the soldiers at My Lai.] The beginnings of the interactions between them in Sept 1693 does have some complexity, especially considering Calef depended on eyewitnesses, but Calef gives the primary reason for his book over and over: to prevent it happening again. Lewismr (talk) 03:31, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Hansen, Bed-clothes, Libel

I don’t believe my entry attributed “archaic” to the OED but provided the definition from that source. Either way, I’d like to swap out the OED cite for the foundational PD work from 1755: Johnson’s dictionary. Johnson cites Shakespeare. Johnson’s dictionary also suggests use of the word “breast” might be closer to the Biblical – i.e. upper torso of either male or female-- than the way we tend to use the word now.

Isn't there a famous case of a space mission ruined by someone failing to use the metric system? This quote provided from Hansen-- "naked from the waist up" (p 191)-- how does Hansen get there without misinterpreting the word "bed-clothes" to mean a nightgown? As noted in the article, this would seem to explain the inconsistency Hansen seems to find between the mention of "bed-clothes" and "cloathes." (BTW Calef was a clothier so he would be probably specific on this.) If you read Hansen with that mistake in mind, he makes more sense. If you come across a scholar on this subject from around Hansen's time, or since, who clarified Calef’s use of the word “bed-clothes,” I would appreciate learning of the citation. As far as the “smutty” view, Hansen doesn't seem to question other aspects of the Sept 13 1693 characterization and writes "Cotton Mather had apparently used laying-on-of-hands as a technique for bringing the girl out of her fits..." Hansen’s strong claim re libel seems to rely heavily on the particular words mentioned (+ “breast”) as they are bantered back and forth between Calef and CM in their correspondence from Jan 1694. Calef mostly seems to say CM’s behavior is not becoming a minister of the gospel and this view seems supportable.

But yes we do agree on a lot here, Sempronius4. I thank you for this discussion and concern. There are other mistakes from Hansen that would seem to suggest he based his work on the writing of CM and may not have read Calef closely enough before formulating a strident view: 1) Calef was not present, as noted in wiki entry. 2) Calef did not "fancy himself a wit" and took umbrage at this characterization from CM. 3) Most importantly, prurient motives on the part of either clergy or judges represents a road-Not-taken for Calef and not an important part of his book's argument, as noted by Sempronius4 re "Doctrinals." As the photo of Calef's "Index" shows, Calef is interested in the imp ("imp owned") as it demonstrates CM is treating M. Rule as a bewitching, not a possession. This speaks to the doctrinals, as discussed by Sempronius4.

I agree Phips was helped and persuaded by popular opinion to end the trials, and thus made the tough decision to risk fracturing his coalition with the Mathers and their pal Stoughton. It also seems likely that Phips protected Calef from the Mather’s ire in the fall of 1693. But I would strongly disagree with Sempronius4 view that by 1693 or some years after there was "no longer danger of more trials." Only in retrospect. The reasons why are key to any discussion of Calef.

GL Kittredge and 20th c Revision

An English professor, GL Kittredge was brilliant, erudite, a shameless sesquipedalian, a contrarian, a proud "Harvard Man" and capable of holding his cards close. An adoring bio from the 1960s casually mentions a couple instances of sexism if not misogyny—troublesome traits to find in someone shaping our view on this topic. But it would probably be easiest to leave Kittredge out of this already over-complex discussion. (If another editor prunes him from this page, I will probably not object.) Indeed, leaving out such an influential voice would seem to mimic Kittredge’s own judo move of deftly avoiding almost any mention of Calef. But make no mistake, Calef is absolutely the 1000 lb gorilla in the room for Kittredge throughout his work on this topic from 1907-1940. While we could respond in kind, and simply avoid mentioning Kittredge here, that approach seems shifty and less-than-straightforward.

Kittredge’s 1907 essay (cited w/link) seems to be the foundational document for 20th c. revision. [See 1911 rebuttal by GL Burr]. Kittredge's essay is not concerned with the details and particulars of 1692 or a list of names of those who spoke out or signed a petition in NE in 1692, but with the thinkers and book writers on the broader topic. After quickly dismissing Calef, "came too late", Kittredge praises Francis Hutchinson though Hutchinson didn't write his book until 1718 and in his book F Hutchinson says he relies on Robert Calef for the NE portion. (Also not mentioned by Kittredge is how Hutchinson in 1718 points to the publication record of both Mathers in the years leading up to 1692.) Kittredge also praises Bekker and discusses him at length though Bekker’s arguments seem very similar to Calef and are nearly simultaneous.

Historians normally seek to separate signal from noise but what Kittredge seems to wish to do in this essay is turn up the crickets to drown out the sirens (compare, for instance, to Clive Holmes fine ebook exploring why the Persecution of Witches Ceased in England). Kittredge endeavors to normalize witchcraft with a plain goal of exonerating “New England’s Forefathers.” In trying not to be provincial, Kittredge seems provincial. (In this way he also reflects badly on the college he seems so protective of, in contrast to so many honest scholars who went before including those who managed to oust the Mathers: Willard, Pemberton, the Brattles, Leveret, and Colman.) Perhaps American-exceptionalism has roots in this sort of insecurity. We should be big enough to accept that two of the most intelligent men in the province (the Mathers) also turned out to be the lousiest leaders imaginable when handed an over-abundance of power and so brought the province to its lowest place in 1692. This is the “tin can” as documented by Calef—our earliest investigative journalist, or a contemporary historian and compiler, or would-be wikipedian, or a blowhard who turned his letter-writing campaign into his single book; call him whatever. Moving from the “City on the Hill” to the US constitution we somehow must find a way to pass thru the narrowness of 1692. Calef has always been the main guide.

So I would say please take another look at Kittredge 1907 essay with these things in mind and see if my characterization is not accurate. Notice Kittredge's gentle treatment of CM, and the rather wacky WF Poole, versus Kittredge’s pushback (sometimes unspoken or merely hinted at) against the views expressed in CW Upham's "Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather" and many other careful and hardworking scholars from 18th and 19th c. (F. Hutchinson, T. Huchinson, Eliot, Quincy, SIbley, GH Moore, CW Ford, even Kittredge’s senior colleague Barrett Wendell who wrote a charitable but accurate bio of CM) all this careful building and archival gathering basically ended at GL Burr's fine compilation in 1914.

Moving forward from the 1907 essay, notice Kittredge’s campaign to get royal society letters attached to CM's name in the alumni rolls at Harvard (though if you read Kittredge's essay, CM did not fulfill the last requirement of traveling to England-- also contrast with this Wolfgang Splitter essay), mentoring of K. Murdock and TJ Holmes and work with elder Murdock at the Harvard press and the history of Harvard in 17th c. written during Kittredge's time there, and up to 1941 when a glass "Mather" case was placed in the lobby of the new Houghton archives. We can salute Kittredge his success for revolutionizing history and overturning 250 years of careful scholarship.

                    “Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, 
                     and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father.”

In this analogy, Calef would be cast as the giggling Ham by Hansen. But this is not an accurate portrayal. Calef’s concern, as stated, was what the drunken father might do next. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lewismr (talk • contribs) 17:11, 9 August 2017 (UTC)