Fachbereich Anglistik und Amerikanistik
Sommersemester 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)
Contracts as Literature
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•
•
•
Bradford/Winthrop: American literature?
Pact amongst equals
Vision as mission
Democratic contracts
History as Literature
• History of open: promise to be fulfilled
• History as continuous text, realized
through its production
• Biblical typology (New Testament of
realization of Old Testament) 
Puritan typology (reality as fulfillment of
Bible and proof of God’s grace)
Typology and Jeremiad
• Jeremiad: sermon, lament, invective
• Prophecy of downfall
• Book of Jeremiah and Book of
Lamentations
• Fall of the kingdom of Judah as warning
example for Puritan mission
Cotton Mather, Magnalia Christi
Americana, 1702
• Magnalia Christi Americana: or, the
Ecclesiastical History of New England
• Model of national founding myth/epic
• Looking back at Puritans as success story
Mather: “I write the wonders of the
Christian Religion”
• Distortion/exaggeration, schizophrenia/neurosis,
education/entertainment
• Persecution of Quakers, Salem witchcraft trials
• Baroque style: “cloth of gold … stuck with as
many jewels as the gown of a Russian
ambassador”
• “I write the Wonders of the Christian Religion,
flying from the Depravations of Europe, to the
American Strand”
• “But whether New England may Live any where
else or no, it must Live in our History!”
Forms of Puritan Literature
• Public texts
– Sermons
– Church histories
– Educational, liturgical
texts (prayer books,
primers)
– Political, theological
pamphlets
• Private texts
–
–
–
–
Journals
Diaries
Letters
Poems
no fictional prose
no theater and drama
Puritans, Women, Poetry, and Sex
• Were Puritans prude and ascetic?
• Enjoyment of sex: only within matrimony
• Precautions and punishments
Puritan Marriage
•
•
•
•
Reformist notions of sexuality
Civil marriage (not holy sacrament)
Sexual satisfaction
Divorce (impotence, infertility,
contraception)
• Theocracy: state power based on religion
•  marriage/sex based on religion
Puritan Woman
•
•
•
•
Protected by law
Submission to husband
“The wife is dead in law.”
“Women are Creatures without which
there is no comfortable Living for man: it is
true of them what is wont to be said of
Governments, That bad ones are better
than none […].” (John Cotton)
Anne Bradstreet
• 1630 on Arbella
• "I changed my
condition and was
married, and came into
this country, where I
found a new world and
new manners, at which
my heart rose. But after
I was convinced it was
the way of God, I
submitted to it and
joined to the church at
Boston.“
Anne Bradstreet: the 10th Muse
• First book of poems
by a single author
from New England
• Rediscovery as
Puritan poet and as
female poet
Puritan Poetry: Morally Corrupting
• “a Boundless and Sickly Apettite” (Cotton
Mather)
• Writing poetry as act of rebellion
• Bradstreet as mother of American female
poetic tradition, especially her depictions
of New England and her poems addressed
to family members (see Adrienne Rich)
Puritan Marriage: Husband and God
•
•
•
•
•
•
(love) letters: private and personal
Loving the creature too much/too little
Loving your spouse => loving God
Poetry => honoring God
Happy marriage => sign of salvation
Plain style
Anne Bradstreet
A Letter to Her Husband
Absent upon Public Employment
MY head, my heart, mine eyes, my life, nay
more,
My joy, my magazine, of earthly store,
If two be one, as surely thou and I,
How stayest thou there, whilst I at Ipswich
lie?
So many steps, head from the heart to sever,
If but a neck, soon should we be together.
I, like the Earth this season, mourn in black,
My Sun is gone so far in's zodiac,
Whom whilst I 'joyed, nor storms, nor frost I
felt,
His warmth such fridged colds did cause to
melt.
My chilled limbs now numbed lie forlorn;
Return; return, sweet Sol, from Capricorn;
In this dead time, alas, what can I more
Than view those fruits which through thy
heart I bore?
Which sweet contentment yield me for a
space,
True living pictures of their father's face.
O strange effect! now thou art southward
gone,
I weary grow the tedious day so long;
But when thou northward to me shalt return,
I wish my Sun may never set, but burn
Within the Cancer of my glowing breast,
The welcome house of him my dearest guest.
Where ever, ever stay, and go not thence,
Till nature's sad decree shall call thee hence;
Flesh of thy flesh, bone of thy bone,
I here, thou there, yet both but one.
“Prologue” to The Tenth Muse
„I am obnoxious to each carping tongue
Who says my hand a needle better fits,
A Poet's pen all scorn I should thus wrong,
for such despite they cast on Female wits.“
„ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain“ („The
Author to Her Book“)
Michael Wigglesworth
• 1662
• The most famous
poem of 17th century
New England
• Jeremiad: fierce
denunciations of
sinners and the
terrible images of
damnation
Wigglesworth, The Day of Doom
Still was the night, Serene &
Bright,
when all Men sleeping lay;
Calm was the season, & carnal
reason
thought so 'twould last for ay.
Soul, take thine ease, let
sorrow cease,
much good thou hast in store:
This was their Song, their
Cups among,
the Evening before.
[…]
Before his Throne a Trump is
blown,
Proclaiming the day of Doom:
Forthwith he cries, Ye dead
arise,
and unto Judgment come.
No sooner said, but 'tis obey'd;
Sepulchres opened are:
Dead bodies all rise at his call,
and 's mighty power declare.
Edward Taylor: Puritan Anomaly
• Discovered 1937 at
Yale archives
• Most important
American poet of 17th
cent.
• High Baroque style
=> cf. Metaphysical
Poets (Donne,
Herbert)
• Puritan themes and
function of poetry
Puritan Meditation
• Taylor: Preparatory Meditations before my
Approach to the Lord’s Supper
• Intimate exercises about Bible passages
• First Series of Meditation 1682-1692
• 7 x 7 (perfection)
• Central theme: grace
• Conceit: fanciful, witty idea
Edward Taylor: Meditation 8 (First Series)
John 6.51. I am the Living Bread
I kening through Astronomy Divine
The World’s bright battlement, wherein I spy
A Golden Path my Pencil cannot line,
From that bright Throne unto my Threshold ly.
And while my puzzle thoughts about it pour,
I find the Bread of Life in’t at my door.
When that this bird of Paradise put in
This Wicker Cage (my Corpse) to tweedle
praise
Had pecked the Fruit forbade: and so did fling
Away its Food; and lost its golden days;
It fell into Celestial Famine sore:
And never could attain a morsel more.
Alas! alas! Poor Bird, what wilt thou do?
The creatures’ field no food for Souls e’er
gave.
And if thou knock at Angels’ doors they show
An Empty Barrel: they no soul bread have.
Alas! Poor Bird, the World’s White Loaf is done.
And cannot yield thee here the smallest
Crumb.
In this sad state, God’s Tender Bowels run
Out streams of Grace. And He to end all strife
The Purest Wheat in Heaven His dear-dear son
Grinds, and kneads up into this Bread of Life.
Which Bread of Life from Heaven down came
and stands
Disht on Thy Table up by Angels’ Hands.
Did God mold up this Bread in Heaven, and bake,
Which from His Table came, and to thine
goeth?
Doth He bespeak thee thus, This Soul Bread take.
Come Eat thy fill of this thy God’s White Loaf?
It’s Food too fine for Angels, yet come, take.
And Eat thy fill. It’s Heaven’s Sugar Cake.
What Grace is this knead in this Loaf? This thing
Souls are but petty things it to admire.
Yee Angels, Help: This fill would to the brim
Heav’ns whelmed-down Crystal meal Bowl, yea
and higher.
This Bread of Life dropped in thy Mouth, doth
Cry:
Eat, Eat me, Soul, and thou shalt never die.
I kening through Astronomy Divine
The World’s bright battlement, wherein I
spy
A Golden Path my Pencil cannot line,
From that bright Throne unto my
Threshold ly.
And while my puzzle thoughts about it
pour,
I find the Bread of Life in’t at my door.
When that this bird of Paradise put in
This Wicker Cage (my Corpse) to tweedle praise
Had pecked the Fruit forbade: and so did fling
Away its Food; and lost its golden days;
It fell into Celestial Famine sore:
And never could attain a morsel more.
Alas! alas! Poor Bird, what wilt thou do?
The creatures’ field no food for Souls e’er gave.
And if thou knock at Angels’ doors they show
An Empty Barrel: they no soul bread have.
Alas! Poor Bird, the World’s White Loaf is done.
And cannot yield thee here the smallest Crumb.
In this sad state, God’s Tender Bowels run
Out streams of Grace. And He to end all strife
The Purest Wheat in Heaven His dear-dear son
Grinds, and kneads up into this Bread of Life.
Which Bread of Life from Heaven down came
and stands
Disht on Thy Table up by Angels’ Hands.
What Grace is this knead in this Loaf? This thing
Souls are but petty things it to admire.
Yee Angels, Help: This fill would to the brim
Heav’ns whelmed-down Crystal meal Bowl, yea
and higher.
This Bread of Life dropped in thy Mouth, doth
Cry:
Eat, Eat me, Soul, and thou shalt never die.
Indians and Settlers: Civilizing
the Wilderness
• Native Americans as tools
of God (approval/retribution)
• Pequot War 1636-1637
• King Philip's War (also
Metacom's War) 1675–1676
• Mary Rowlandson’s The
Soveraignty and Goodness
of GOD, Together with the
Faithfulness of His
Promises Displayed: being
a Narrative of the Captivity
and Restauration of Mrs.
Mary Rowlandson, 1682
“those that scaped the fire were
slain with the sword, some hewed
to pieces, others run through with
their rapiers, so as they were
quickly dispatched und very few
escaped. It was a fearful sight to
see them thus frying in the fire and
the streams of blood quenching
the same, and horrible was the
stink and scent thereof, but the
victory seemd a sweet sacrifice,
and they gave the praise thereof
to God, who had wrought so
wonderfully for them, thus to . . .
give them so speedy a victory
over so proud and insulting an
enemy . . . “
(Bradford on Pequot War)
17th c. painting depicting Naragansett
Indians executing Puritan woman
17th c. painting depicting Naragansett
Indians executing Puritan woman
Religious pedagogy and
dramatic adventure
“I asked him wither he would read; he told me, he earnestly
desired it. I gave him my bible, and he lighted upon the
comfortable Scripture, Psal. 118.17,18. I shall not dy but live,
and declare the works of the Lord; the Lord hath chastened
me sore, yet he hath not given me over to death. Look here,
mother (sayes he), did you read this? And here I may take
occasion to mention one principall ground of my setting forth
these Lines: even as the Psalmist sayes To declare the
Works of the Lord, and his wonderful power in carrying us
along, preserving us in the wilderness, while under our
Enemies hand; and returning us in safety again. And His
Goodness in bringing to my hand so many comfortable and
suitable scriptures in my distress.”
• American Passages:
3. Utopian Promise (Purtians, Quakers)