A Reclassification of Selected Seventeenth Century New England Pulpit Literature. Department of American Studies, Saint Louis University, St. Louis, MO, November 1998. Myths are creation stories explaining either how a culture came into existence, presently perceives itself, or projects its identity into the future. Jeremiads are political sermons lamenting New England s spiritual and cultural declension, while also issuing a recipe for reform.
Findings reveal that, within jeremiads, there is strong evidence of utopian metaphors.