Empirical Form and Religious Function: Apparition Narratives of the Early English Enlightenment (Beitrage Zur Englischen Und Amerikanischen Literatur, 38)

"Empirical Form and Religious Function provides a fresh perspective on the rise of empirical apparition narratives in the Anglophone world of the Early Enlightenment era. Drawing on both well-established and previously unknown sources, Michael Dopffel here offers a fundamental reappraisal of one of the defining narrative genres of the 17th and 18th centuries. Intricately connected to evolving discourses of natural philosophy, Protestant religion and popular literature, the apparition narratives portrayed in this work constitute a hybrid genre whose interpretations and literary functions retained the ambiguity of their subject matter. Simultaneously an empirically approachable phenomena and a religious experience, witnesses and writers translated the spiritual characteristics of apparitions into distinct literary forms, thereby shaping conceptions of ghosts, whether factual or fictional, to this day." -- Back cover Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter 1 ‘No Spirit, No God’: Empiricism in Apparition Narratives 1.1 Ghostly Anecdotes 1.2 Empiricism & Rationalism 1.3 Henry More & the Dangers of Materialism 1.4 The Royal Society & the Spiritual World 1.5 Joseph Glanvill & “The Drummer of Tedworth” 1.6 Defending Empirical Accounts of Apparitions 1.7 Glanvill’s Legacy Chapter 2 ‘Res Mirabilis’: Evidences of Providence 2.1 Puritan Empiricism 2.2 The Providences of Increase Mather 2.3 The Haunting of George Walton 2.4 Cotton Mather & the Spiritual World 2.5 Reformation & Narrative 2.6 Richard Baxter’s Spiritual Exercises 2.7 William Turner’s Compleat History Chapter 3 ‘Strange and Wonderful News’: Apparitions & Popular Print 3.1 Popular Ghosts 3.2 Realism & Apparition Narratives 3.3 Counter-Narratives 3.4 The Ghost of George Villiers 3.5 Defoe’s Apparitions 3.6 The Ghost of Mrs. Veal Chapter 4 Enthusiasmus Redivivus? Revivalism & the Evidence of Spirits 4.1 Experiencing Heartfelt Religion 4.2 Radical Pietism 4.3 The Debate over Religious Experiences 4.4 Evidence of the Revivals 4.5 Publishing the Revivals 4.6 Radical Publications 4.7 Revivalists & Apparitions 4.8 New Narratives of the Spiritual World Conclusion Appendix: Prose Narratives of Spiritual Encounters Bibliography Index