[Connecting ideogrammically with the Edward Bernays entry that only
appeared on [log in to unmask]]
During its entire existence between 1606 and 1624, the Virginia Company
employed preachers to deliver sermons to shareholders and prospective
investors. One of those preachers so employed was the great metaphysical
poet, John Donne. Donne was paid by the franchise in cash and possibly
stock. To hard sell the economic benefits of the colonies, John Donne,
the preacher, relied heavily on Christian eschatology and
providentialism. But as a poet, Donne aroused interest in colonial
development by employing a means familiar to Bernays and Madison Avenue,
sex. For example, in his Elegy XIX, Going to Bed, Donne writes:
License my roving hands, and let them go,
Before, behind, between, above, below.
O my America! my new-found-land,
My kingdome, safeliest when with one man man'd,
My Myne of precious stones, My Emperie,
How blest am I in this discovering thee!
To enter in these bonds, is to be free;
Then where my hand is set, my seal shall be.
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