Art and History in Bradford's of Plymouth Plantation

VEN if it hadn't been praised over a dinner of "Boiled Philadelphia Capon," "English Snipe," and "Fried Bananas Glace""' as a work unparalleled "in human annals since the story of Bethlehem,"2 William Bradford's history Of Plymouth Plantation would still be unique in the literature of early America. Despite the long, occasionally bitter debates which have eddied about the Puritans, critics and apologists alike seem content to agree that at least this one work is an "authentic masterpiece" and an "American classic."3 Historians continue to rely on it, as they have since the time of Nathaniel Morton, in constructing their own accounts.4 Intellectual and literary historians diligently mine it for passages illustrating their larger, more general arguments about the Puritan Mind,5 providential historiography,6 Puritan prose