Speaking with the Dead in Early America

In late medieval Catholicism, mourners believed in purgatory, which allowed the living to help the deceased. The Reformation abolished purgatory, but Protestants continued to imagine relationships with the dead, leading to a rich history of communication with the deceased in Protestant belief and practice. Erik R. Seeman's book explores this history from Elizabethan England to puritan New England and the American Enlightenment, revealing how sermons, elegies, and epitaphs portrayed the dead as speaking or being spoken to, ghost stories and Gothic fiction depicted a permeable boundary between this world and the next, and parlor songs and funeral hymns encouraged singers to imagine communication with the dead.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 344 pages
Publication date: 19 February 2022
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

In late medieval Catholicism, mourners employed a range of practices to maintain a connection with the deceased, with the belief in purgatory, a middle place between heaven and hell, playing a crucial role. However, in the early sixteenth century, the Reformation abolished purgatory, as its leaders sought to diminish attention to the dead and focus on devotion to God. However, the result of the Reformation was more complicated than historians had realized, as Protestants continued to imagine relationships with the dead and the desire for these relations became an important aspect of Protestant belief and practice. In his book, Speaking with the Dead in Early America, historian Erik R. Seeman undertakes a 300-year history of Protestant communication with the dead. Seeman chronicles the story of Protestants' relationships with the deceased from Elizabethan England to puritan New England and then on through the American Enlightenment and into the middle of the nineteenth century with the explosion of interest in Spiritualism. He draws on a wide range of sources to uncover the beliefs and practices of both ordinary people, especially women, and religious leaders. This research reveals how sermons, elegies, and epitaphs portrayed the dead as speaking or being spoken to, how ghost stories and Gothic fiction depicted a permeable boundary between this world and the next, and how parlor songs and funeral hymns encouraged singers to imagine communication with the dead. Speaking with the Dead in Early America thus boldly reinterprets Protestantism as a religion in which the dead played a central role.

Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780812225181