Fachbereich Anglistik und AmerikanistikSommersemester 2010

History of American Literature

Prof. Dr. Ralph J. Poole

Vision and Mission:The Puritans

The Puritans

Founding Fathers – Founding Texts• John Winthrop. A Model of Christian Charity (1630)• William Bradford. Of Plymouth Plantation (1620-50)Puritan Literary Forms:• History: Cotton Mather. Magnalia Christi Americana

(1700)• Poetry: Anne Bradstreet, Edward Taylor• Captivity Narrative: Mary Rowlandson. A Narrative of

the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson (1682)

Puritan Origins: Reformations

• Roots in Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation, English Reformation

• Founding of Church of England: Henry VIII 1534• Puritans’ reaction: anti-feudal, anti-clerical,

social-revolutionary • Point of contention: for Puritans word of bible

superior to authority of church -> reformist thought: bible as absolute foundation of interpretation

Puritan Origins: Exodus

• Rise during reign of Elizabeth I 1558-1603• Puritanism as reformism: back to Christ’s original

“pure” church• Purification: from sin, from Roman-Catholic ritual• James I: tolerant at first, King James Bible• Puritan mass emigration under Charles I• Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell 1649-1658• Anglican Reformation (Charles II)• Puritan bastion in New England: theocracy

Calvinist Influence

1.Original sin total depravity2.Only the chosen are saved limited atonement3.Only God’s grace can lead to salvation

irresistible grace4.Only the believers (Saints) act in accordance with

God’s wishes perseverance of the saints5.Salvation or damnation is predestined

predestination

Puritan Theology: Paradoxes

• Predestination, Elect• Responsibility of own acts • predestination vs. free will• Strict boundaries and social control• Communal structure• Stigmatizing sinners (Hester Prynne

in Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter)

Puritan Theology: Conversion

• Every human spiritually dead: original sin• Rebirth and regeneration• Entry into church: spiritual awakening =

conversion• True evidence through convincing account

Puritan Theology: Self-Control

• Strict regime of control• Psychological advantage:– Individual: self-affirmation when elect– Collective: communal bond against outsiders

• Psychological disadvantage:– Constant doubt about status – Constantly seeking signs

• Literature of mediation and inquiry

Puritan Theology: Congregationalism

• Church consisting of seven founding members• Autonomous and anti-hierarchical• Mandatory church attendance (Massachusetts

1634)• 2 remaining sacraments: Baptism, Lord’s Supper• No ceremonial rituals during worship (crossing,

kneeling)• Only Sabbath sacred, no holidays

Puritan Theology: Covenant of Grace

• God’s grace cannot be earned• Transition from original covenant between

God and Adam to Covenant of Grace

John Winthrop: A Model of Christian Charity 1630

• On board the Arbella • Lay sermon• Religion and law • Divine providence:

“God Almighty in his most holy and wise providence that soe disposed of the condition of mankinde, as in all times some must be rich some poorer, some hihe and eminent in poer and dignitie; others meane and in subjeccion.”

Winthrop: Religious Economy

• Economic model of exchange

• Strong/rich support weak/poor

• weak/poor acknowledge pre-existing order

Winthrop: Corpus Christi• “duty of mercy”: “giving,

lending, and forgiving”• Community as Corpus Christi• Members of the body =

members of the community• “love is the bond of

perfection”

"this love is absolutely necessary to the being of the body of Christ, as the sinewes and other ligaments of a naturall body are to the being of that body . . . in this duty of love wee must love, brotherly, without dissimulation, wee must love one another with a pure hearte fervently; wee must bear each others burdens; wee must not looke onley on our owne things, but allsoe on the things of our brethrens . . ."

Winthrop: Contractual Religion• Community as contract• Based on Old Testament

"he has taken us to be his after a most strickt and peculiar manner which will make him the more jealous of our love and obedience soe he tells the people of Isreall, you onely I have knowne of all the families of the Earthe therefore I will punish you for your Transgressions"

Winthrop: Law and Religion"Thus stands the cause betweene God and us, wee are entered into Covenant with him for this worke, wee have taken out a Commission, the Lord has given us leave to draw our owne Articles . . . Now if the Lord shall please to hear us, and bring us in peace to the place wee desire, then has hee ratified this Covenant and sealed our Commission [and] will expect a strickt performance of the Articles contained in it, but if wee shall neglect the ovservation of these Articles . . . and dissembling with our God, shall fall to embrace this present world and prosecute our carnall intentions, seekeing greate things for our selves and our posterity, the Lord will surely breake out in wrath against us, be revenged of such a perjured people, and make us knowe the price of the breache of such a Covenant."

Winthrop: City Upon a Hill

"for wee must consider that wee shall be as a Citty upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are uppon us, soe that if we shall deale falsely with our god in this worke wee have undertaken and soe cause him to withdrawe his present help from us, wee shall be made a story and a by-word through the world."

Puritan Typology

• Bible as essential text• Literal understanding, absolute truth of words• No exegesis, but literal realization • Bible as law, rule, guidance• Reality as fulfillment of text reality as

typological repetition of biblical prediction

William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation 1620-50

• Typological reading• Pilgrim Fathers• Mayflower 1620• Founding and Governor

of Plymouth• History not as chronicle

but as God’s mission• Example for future

generations

Mayflower Compact 1620"for the Glory of God and advancement of the Christian Faith and Honour of our King and Country, as Voyage to plant the First Colony in the Northern Parts of Virginia, do by these presents solemnly and mutually in the presence of God and of one another, Covenant and Combine ourselves together into a Civil Body Politic, for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute and frame such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions and Offices . . . as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the Colony, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience."

Bradford: Plain Style

• Doubts and contradictions

• Discrepancies between mission and reality

• Plain style

“I shall endeavour to manifest in a plain style, with singular regard unto the simple truth in all things.”

Bradford: Power of Satan

• “the gross darkness of popery which had covered and overspread the Christian world”

• “the truth prevail and the churches of God revert to their ancient purity and recover their primitive order, liberty, and beauty”

Bradford: Dissidence"And I may not omit here a special work of God's providence. There was a proud and very profane young man, one of the seamen, of a lusty, able body, which made him the more haughty; he would always be contemning the poor people in their sickness and cursing them daily with grievous execrations; and did not let to tell them that he hoped to help to cast half of them overboard before they came to their journey's end, and to make merry with what they had; and if he were by any gently reproved, he would curse and swear most bitterly. But it pleased God before they came half seas over, to smite this young man with a grievous disease, of which he died in a desperate manner, and so was himself the first that was thrown overboard. Thus his curses light on his own head, and it was an astonishment to all his fellows for they noted it to be the just hand of God upon him . . . "

Rebellion and Resistance: Thomas Morton

• Thomas Morton: Merrymount• Trade with Indians• Festivities incl. dancing and alcohol• Considered Indians more civilized than

Puritans

“But what chiefly characterized the colonists of Merry Mount was their veneration for the Maypole. It has made their true history a poet's tale. Spring decked the hallowed emblem with young blossoms and fresh green boughs; Summer brought roses of the deepest blush, and the perfected foliage of the forest; Autumn enriched it with that red and yellow gorgeousness which converts each wildwood leaf into a painted flower; and Winter silvered it with sleet, and hung it round with icicles, till it flashed in the cold sunshine, itself a frozen sunbeam. Thus each alternate season did homage to the Maypole, and paid it a tribute of its own richest splendor. Its votaries danced round it, once, at least, in every month; sometimes they called it their religion, or their altar; but always, it was the banner staff of Merry Mount.

Unfortunately, there were men in the new world of a sterner faith than these Maypole worshippers. Not far from Merry Mount was a settlement of Puritans, most dismal wretches, who said their prayers before daylight, and then wrought in the forest or the corn-field till evening made it prayer time again. Their weapons were always at hand to shoot down the straggling savage. When they met in conclave, it was never to keep up the old English mirth, but to hear sermons three hours long, or to proclaim bounties on the heads of wolves and the scalps of Indians. Their festivals were fast days, and their chief pastime the singing of psalms. Woe to the youth or maiden who did but dream of a dance! The selectman nodded to the constable; and there sat the light-heeled reprobate in the stocks; or if he danced, it was round the whipping-post, which might be termed the Puritan Maypole.”

(Hawthorne, “The Maypole of Merry Mount”, 1836/37)

Morton’s Merrymount

• Mount Ma-re / Merrymount• New English Canaan 1637 – Satirical denunciation of the Puritan regime– Puritans accused of genocide– Indians as noble(r) culture– Utopia: “demartialising” of colonies and creating

multicultural New Canaan • Bradford: “… they fell to great licentiousness and led a

dissolute life, pouring out themselves into all profaneness. And Morton became Lord of Misrule, and maintained (as it were) a School of Atheism.”

"Marvelous it may be to see and consider how some kind of wickedness did grow and break forth here, in a land where the same was so much witnessed against and so narrowly looked unto, und severely punished when it was known, as in no place more, or so much, that I have known or heard of; insomuch that they have been somewhat censured even by moderate and good men for their severity in punishments. And yet all this could not suppress the breaking out of sundry notorious sins . . . especially drunkenness and uncleanness. Not only incontinency between person unmarried, for which many both men and women have been punished sharply enough, but some married persons also. But that which is worse, even sodomy and buggery (things fearful to name) have broke forth in this land oftener than once.“ (Bradford)

Bradford’s Elegy: “so uncertain are the mutable things of this unstable world”

"They went from England to Holland, where they found both worse air and diet than they came from; from thence, enduring a long imprisonment as it were in the ships at sea, into New England; and how it hath been with them here hath already been shown, and what crosses, troubles, fears, wants and sorrows they had been liable unto is easy to conjecture. So as in some sort they may say with the Apostle, 2 Corinthians xi.26,27, they were "in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of their own nation, in perils among the heathen, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and painfulness, in watching often, in hunger and thirst, in fasting often, in cold and nakedness.”

• "What was it then that upheld them? It was God's visitation that preserved their spirits. Job x.12: "Thou hast given me life and grace, and thy visitation hath preserved my spirit." He that upheld the Apostle upheld them. "They were persecuted, but not forsaken, cast down, but perished not." [II Corinthians 4:9] "As unknown, and yet known; as dying, and behold we live; as chastened, and yet not killed", 2 Corinthians vi.).