General Questions
· For colonial literature - look at styles - where are their allusions coming from?
· What value system are they inculcating?
· Is this "literature" - what does literature entail? (Convey the idea that literature for the colonials consisted of sermons and histories) (Connect to Perserverance of the Saints i.e. studying lives so they can learn by them. Literature serves a didactic purpose)
· If people don't have much spare time, what will they read?
· If a people are religious, what will be their main form of reading?
· What was the first permanent English settlement in America? Jamestown
wn, 1607 - interested in commerce, not religion
· Why does everyone think America was "founded" by the Pilgrims? They wrote the best story.
Terms/People to know
Terms to know to understand Puritanism: Babylon: River that must be crossed to reach the Holy Land. Symbolically, a measure of the difficulty of attaining Canaan. Calvinism: A stricter form of Protestantism started by John Calvin. Closely related to Puritanism Canaan: promised land of the Israelites and thus a symbol of the temporal reward/holy land of a persecuted people. Indentured Servant: A servant "owned" by a master for a set number of years to pay for passage, in America's case, to the New World Israelites: Here, a symbol (typology? [see below]) of the plight of the Puritans - a people persecuted for their religious beliefs, but secure in the knowledge that they are the "chosen people" of God. They are searching for their "Holy Land." Jeremiad: A rhetorical style which preaches hell and damnation because of the sinfulness of its audience. Usually a sermon, but this could be in a novel, poem, or other work. It could also be secularized as a more warning for any kind of dire future because of the apathy/ignorance/indolence of its audience. Jerusalem: Used as a symbol of a holy city - which is both hard won and must be defended against infidels Job: The Book of Job, from the Old Testament, relates the story of Job, a man rich in wealth, family and happiness who, through the machinations of God and Satan, is beset by calamity as a test of his faith. He loses his money, his children are killed, and his health declines. Though sorely afflicted (quite literally: his body is encrusted with sores), he resists the temptation to rail at God and remains faithful. Finally, after much pain, suffering, and mental anguish is endured, God acknowledges his faith and relents, bestowing on him twice the riches he had before. Pilgrim: In general, a person on a religious journey. Pre-lapsarian: the world before Adam and Eve bit the apple (before mankind "lapsed" into sin. And Edenic state. Post-lapsarian: the world after Adam and Eve bit the apple Providence: Not a city in Rhode Island, but evidence of God working on the earth. This could take the form of a bit of good or bad luck or an act of coincidence. Typology: A belief that history is predicted in the bible. Thus, a specific action will be ascribed/compared to a biblical occurrence. Wilderness (in a religious sense): a region where the faithful are alone and afflicted.
18th century American
Hornbook - this is how
colonial children learned their alphabet.
: www.common-place.org/ vol-02/no-03/school/
A page from a New England Primer printed in Boston 1690. (image from http://www.iupui.edu/~engwft/slide16l.gif and http://www.iupui.edu/~engwft/slide17l.gif )
Overview on Puritanism
Total depravity - "in Adam's Fall we Sinned All." Man is born into sin – a post lapsarian state. Pre-lapsarian is before the fall (that apple caused all kind of problems) – an Edenic state only attainable by the elected. Unconditional election - This differs from contemporary Christianity, which emphasizes the joy at the return of the prodigal son: you can be saved if you convert. In Puritan theology, the hand of God reaches out and touches people in a way inexplicable for humans. We don't know why some people are chosen Limited atonement -- being good ain't enough (in this version, the prodigal son gets shards and flints) Irresistible grace - Grace is the conductor that needs to stamp your ticket to get into the pearly gates - but it's up to God to bestow it (humans can't get it or give it away - see above) Perseverance of the Saints - The saints (not Catholic saints but those people who were assured of salvation) are worth studying because they obviously were the elected, but help of this kind is limited because . . . you guessed it; it doesn't matter because of Unconditional Election. Nonetheless, if everyone lived up to the ideals of the saints and holy men, then the community would be a better place (see Winthrop's "A Model"). How is this reflected in the kinds of literature Puritans wrote?
Given their biblical outlook, to a puritan, Satan was an active presence in the world - and Adam's fall was a real event that was still capable of engendering pain and grief
Discussion questions
William Bradford: From Of Plymouth Plantation
(image from www.pilgrimhall.org/bradjour.htm)
We'll be looking at style, religion, class, relations with Native Americans
Religion
What is God's providence, according to Bradford? What shapes does it assume? What do his examples say about the kind of God worshipped by the Puritans?
How does he describe the wilderness? Does it seem welcoming or inhospitable? Which words/passages give shape to his idea of the wilderness?
What can you make of the outlines of Puritan religion from this reading?
Why the short chapter on Bestiality? Where does the Bestiality come from ?
Why emphasize the hardships of the New World? How could this connect to religion? - consider the saint's lives: do they typically die easy deaths? What about Christ?
The critic Myra Jehlen argues that "The space that Bradford does not give in Of Plymouth Plantation to the Indians, he devotes to careful discussions of the emergence of an English culture of the New World" (91). Is this true? Doesn't she give "space" to the native Americans?
Morton
How does Morton represent a threat to their order?
How does Bradford use language to reinforce this idea of a threat?
Native Americans
How could this idea of the wilderness effect his view of the native Americans?
What is view of native Americans?
How did they get the seeds for their first crops?
Connection to style: Note passage on 188-189 - burning of Indians. How does this seem different from other passages?
Now this is a historical book right? Was Bradford there at the attack?
Connection to class: how does his view of hierarchy connect to class?
Style
Literal and figurative: when do they arrive in America?
how is the style here? Contrast with Morton.
Mayflower Compact
From http://www.mayflower.azimuth.harcourtcollege.com
Class
How important is hierarchy to the Puritans?
Class and authority : In the Bestiality chapter What kind of person engaged in this?
Thomas Morton
Style:
Genre Travel literature - stock conventions: description of the flora and fauna. A way for people to take a trip and never leave the farm.
Where do his allusions come from? How does this contrast with Bradford?
What do you make of the tone of his writing - particularly his description of his . . . deportation? How does his description contrast with Bradford? 198
How does he describe the origin and purpose of the maypole? How does it contrast with Bradford? (198)
Nature
What is his view of nature? 198 in contrast to Bradford, what is missing in his description?
Sermon as Literature John Winthrop (written 1630) "A Model of Christian Charity" Part II (217)
Style:
What do you make of the style/structure of the sermon? Why the Quest., Ans. Objection format? What does this make it seem like?
What about the use of numbers as structure repeated throughout? What does this convey?
Theme
What does Winthrop emphasize, individuality or community?
Why emphasize ___? What's good and bad about it/how will it help/hurt them?
Religion
Does he also believe that Puritans are a "chosen" people?
contemporary examples? Do we still feel this way?
What do you make of his belief that the Puritan settlement will be a "city on a hill" - why use this metaphor? Why a hill?
How can they tell if the Lord agrees to the commission?
Puritan Poetry
Terms/People to know for Puritan Poetry Devotional Poetry: Poetry written to praise a religious figure or profess a religious belief Metaphysical Poetry: Common during the 17th century, it is poetry which delights in developing extended metaphors, usually between seeming disparate objects - i.e. love and a compass (Donne's "A Valediction Forbidding Mourning" John Donne: Best known metaphysical poet (English, 1572?-1631) Conceit: in poetry a particular extended metaphor, usually employed to convey a complex thought.
Michael Wigglesworth
Religion
How is Christ described? What does say about their view of Christianity?
What values are ascribed/rewarded in this poem?
What is punished?
Where does he suggest Unconditional Election?
What does he address in stanza 109?
"whose grace transcends men's thought" (stanza 135) how does this fit into unconditional grace?
What do you make of the saints reaction in stanza 219?
Style/imagery
Why the gloss (words on the side)? What function do they serve?
Why open at night?
Why call the martyrs "sheep" Stanza 22
Why the sinners "goats" 27
How is this like a sermon? Compare with Winthrop
What do you make of the chain of thinking of the sinners in stanza a 183-4
Small detail, but why use "chaff" (stanza 207) to describe the lost souls?
Anne Bradstreet
Note her biography - she knew Greek and Latin and was well educated. Came over as a young bride.
Below you'll find a radio story on Bradstreet from National Public
Radio -- A great example of your tax dollars at work
Anne Bradstreet: America's First Poet
Weekend Edition - Saturday, April
23, 2005 · Anne Bradstreet was a reluctant settler in America,
a Puritan who migrated from her beloved England in the 1600s. She
became America's first poet, and a new biography details her life.
Scott Simon speaks with poet Charlotte Gordon, author of Mistress
Bradstreet: The Untold Life of America's First Poet.
Connections b/t poets
· How does poetry connect with Puritanism? Is it successful? I.e. do these work both as poems and as puritan documents?
· What in these poems make them "puritan"?
· How do these connect with the prose we've read (this may be similar to previous question - make specific connections of specific words in poems to specific words in prose)
"The Author to Her Book"
· What rag is she referring to in line 5?
· What is she suggesting about her verse in line 17-18? What kind of "dress" is she referring to?
"The Prologue"
· What does this poem reveal about the role of women in Puritan life?
· Why would she include it as a prologue?
"Contemplations"
· What's the definition of contemplation
· Why move from thoughts of nature/god
· Stanza 21 moves from rocks and trees to water and fish as locus
· Where is she drawing her allusions from?
· Stanza 26 shift to birds
· What contrast is set up in stanzas 26-28 and then 29? Who seems to "win" this contrast by the end of stanza 29? Who wins by stanza 30? Why?
· On one level the poem is about time - why? Why meditate on time - what's the connection to religion?
· Seems mixed on nature - she calls "Time, the fatal wrack of mortal things" yet argues earlier that nature itself will last - I guess she implies that only God will last forever, but it does seem that nature will be around for quite a while as well.
"Here Follows"
· What's the central metaphor in this poem? Does it work?
· Why "blest" god for burning a house?
· What's the difference b/t "pleasant" (lines 27, 31) and the house in heaven?
"To My Dear and Loving Husband"
Edward Taylor
Biography
General questions
· How is his work different from Bradstreet's?
"Meditation 8"
· What metaphysical conceit does he develop throughout the poem? ____ is _____
· What is the "Bread of Life" that he is talking about?
· Communion
"Huswifery" (349)
· How effective is the spinning metaphor? How does Edwards develop it?
"A Fig for Thee, Oh! Death" (361)
· how does he describe death in the first few lines? Why?
· What worms is he talking about in line 14/15?
· Why is the body a "harlot" (line 24)?
· Why are "eating and drinking . . . evil joys" (line 26)?
· Who's the "strumpet" (line 29)?
· Which other puritan writer comes to mind in line 37?
Quotes from critics
Slotkin, Richard. Regneration Through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600-1860. Wesleyan University Press.
"Generally speaking, the basic factors in the physical and psychological situation of the colonists were the wildness of the land, its blending of unmitigated harshness and tremendous potential fertility; the absence of strong European cultures on the boarders; and the eternal presence of the native people in the woods . . . . To these must be added the sense of exile - the psychological anxieties attendant on the tearing up of home roots for wide wandering" (Slotkin 18)
argues that colonial writers "usually had ulterior motives in publishing them [sermons, histories, captivity narratives, etc.] - a desire to explain or justify, through imaginative reconstruction of events, a course of action they had taken or their right to possess the land; or simply an attempt to persuade potential European settlers of the beauties and wealth of the strange new world" (Slotkin 18)
"The colonies were founding in an age of printing, in large part by Puritans, who were much inclined toward the writing and printing of books and pamphlets and the creating of elaborate metaphors proving the righteousness of their proceedings. Since American turned readily to the printed word for the expression and the resolution of doubts, of problems of faith, of anxiety and aspiration, literature became the primary vehicle for the communication of mythic material, with the briefest of gaps between the inception of an oral legend and its being fixed in the public print" (Slotkin 19)
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