... not yet true“Americans,” not yet free from the beliefs that made them Puritans in the first place.At the turn of the twentieth century, Barrett Wendell stated thatPuritan writing told “a story ... sug-gests that the Puritan elegy worked, and worked well, within the ritualof grieving that it was written to demonstrate and encourage. Strip awaythat ritual, and the life of the text evaporates.4To ... failed totranscend its specific occasion, the result was obscurity or charges ofpatent sentimentality. Attracted to the thematic swerve from death to artenacted by the pastoralelegy, critics...