Samuel Danforth's errand into the wilderness and the discourse of arrival in early American culture

Abstract

This essay explores the way in the experience of arrival is constructed through the resources of language and community. Samuel Danforth's sermon “Errand into the Wilderness” provides an exceptionally clear case study of this process. By examining its structural and thematic features, we can identify the rhetorical action by which arrival is made meaningful as a force in the shaping of cultural identity.

Key concepts:

• Arrival
• Danforth
• community
• culture
• jeremiad
• memory
• rhetoric