Book Description

"Adams was more successful as a writer than as a clergyman. As a poet, he wrote a series of generally impressive personal poems, crafted effective images, created a memorable melancholiac, composed a substantial poem in the Blackmorean mode, and translated parts of the Bible and Horace. Most of his poems were collected and published post-humously under his name in 1745. With his uncle Matthew Adams and Mather Byles, John Adams participated in Proteus Echo, the second essay series to appear in American newspapers. Franklin's Dogood papers were the first. In his essays, Adams is most important as a literary theorist, especially when addressing how much, if at all, authors should compromise their values in order to please readers. He encourages politeness and social interaction and criticizes boring ministers, thus evincing the changing social dynamics of the time. The advice to the love-lorn column might have originated in one of his contributions to Proteus Echo."--BOOK JACKET.