UTOPIAN PROMISE - Annenberg Media

KNIGHT WEB ARCHIVE
[6750] George F. Wright, Gurdon
Saltonsall (c. 1710), courtesy of Yale
University Art Gallery. This portrait
depicts the Reverend Gurdon Saltonstall
(1666–1724) of Connecticut, Knight’s
host in New London. Born in
Massachusetts and educated at
Harvard, Saltonstall became governor of
Connecticut in 1708.
[7057] Annie Fisher, Fisher’s Tavern in
Dedham, courtesy of the Dedham
Historical Society, Dedham,
Massachusetts. Like most eighteenthcentury
travelers, Knight rented rooms in
public inns and taverns. In her journal,
Knight recalls going to Fisher’s Tavern to
find a guide to take her to Billings’s
Tavern her first night on the road.
Drinking was a popular Puritan activity,
and taverns played an important role in
the social and political lives of towns.
[7060] Anonymous, The Reverend
James Pierpont (1711), courtesy of Yale
University Art Gallery. In his will Pierpont
gave eight acres of land upon which the
first meeting house was built. Pierpont
appears in Knight’s Private Journal when
he mediates on behalf of Knight. His
dress in the portrait reflects a persistence
of “plain style” into the eighteenth century,
at least among the orthodox
Calvinist ministers.
26 UNIT 3, UTOPIAN PROMISE
whither, and encompassed with terrifying darkness; the least of which
was enough to startle a more masculine courage. Added to which
the reflections, as in the afternoon of the day that my call was very
questionable, which, till then I had not so prudently as I ought considered.
While this passage sounds akin to the kind of spiritual examination
common in traditional Puritan autobiographical writings, Knight
quickly undercuts its religious tone. Rather than recount an assurance
of grace or gratitude for God’s mercy, she instead reports her relief at
catching a glimpse of the moon, which she proceeds to describe in
neoclassical heroic couplets. You might ask students to focus on this
passage in order to highlight the difference between the secularism of
Knight’s Journal and the profound religiosity of most of the other texts
included in this unit. Ask them to consider the significance of Knight’s
homage to “Cynthia,” the pagan goddess of the moon, in a moment of
uncertainty and distress.
■ While Knight does not seem to have written her Journal for publication,
she probably did circulate it in manuscript form for the
amusement of her friends and relatives. Ask students to look for clues
that might indicate the kind of audience Knight imagined reading her
book. You might point out her lack of introspection, her sarcastic comments
about social inferiors, and her inclusion of poetry and allusions
to European literary texts. What kind of image was Knight trying to
create for herself?
QUESTIONS
Comprehension: What kinds of prejudices color Knight’s descriptions
of the people she meets on her journey? What do her responses to
people of different economic status and race reveal about the social
hierarchy that structured colonial America?
Context: What role, if any, does spirituality play in Knight’s worldview
and her understanding of her journey? When does she bring up
religion? How does her Journal compare to other journals and autobiographical
narratives included in this unit (for example, those of
Bradford, Rowlandson, and Woolman)?
Exploration: Literary critics disagree on the generic categorization of
Knight’s Journal. It has been read as participating in the traditions
of the picaresque, mock-epic, and the captivity narrative, while it
has also been cited as a foundational text in the development of
American travel writing and the American comic tradition. How
would you categorize the Journal? What kind of influence do you
think it may have had on later American writing?
John Woolman (1720–1772)
John Woolman was born into a Quaker family in West Jersey (later
New Jersey) in 1720. From an early age, he manifested a deep sensitivity
toward spiritual matters that would become the basis for his