AMERICAN LITERATURE AND CULTURE, lecture 2. From Pre-Columbian to Colonial America / 2
The religious diversity of Colonial America
Puritans – English radical Protestants (see below)
Anglicans – “Church of England,” mostly in the South; after independence: the Episcopalian Church
Catholics – Catholic charter to Lord Baltimore, from Charles I, for the Maryland colony
Quakers – Rhode Island and Pennsylvania: dissenters, eliminated the clergy; “inner light” and personal
relationship with God; opposed slavery and wearing arms
Mennonites and Amish – (Menno Simons, Jakob Amman) Swiss, Dutch, German Anabaptists; simple and
strictly regulated community life
German Lutherans and Scotch Presbyterians - the Middle Colonies; Germans; Scotch and Scotch-Irish
Puritan New England
Broader historical / religious context
1534: Henry VIII declared the autonomy of the Church of England
1553: “Bloody” Mary; made attempts to re-Catholicize; reign of terror
1554: Elizabeth I reestablishes the Church of England as official state church
1642: the English Civil War; 1649 the execution of Charles Stuart (Charles I)
Key events in Puritan New England
The Plymouth colony (Separatists: “Pilgrims”; William Bradford)
1620: the Mayflower: Cape Cod (arriving from Holland, where they had been living since 1609)
the Separatists’ charter for “the Plymouth Company”; the Mayflower to Virginia; Cape Cod; Plymouth
new charter:“The Mayflower Compact”: loyalty to the king; established their own government by majority rule
2nd governor (after John Carver): William Bradford, from 1621 to 1657
1643: joined the New England Federation
The Massachusetts Bay Colony (congregationalists, “Puritans”; John Endicott, John Winthrop)
1630: the start of the Great Migration, with the first settlers arriving on board of the Arbella
John Winthrop’s secular sermon preached on the Arbella: “A Model of Christian Charity”
1637 the Pequot War (over the Connecticut Valley)
1675-76 King Philip’s War (against the Narragansett Indians)
1692 the Salem witch trials
“Puritan”: first a derogatory term cast upon radical Protestants by Anglicans and Catholics
difference between the Pilgrims and the Puritans: Pilgrims: also called Separatists, argued for separation from
the Church of England; Puritans: reformers, not secessionists
Puritans and Anglicans (Church of England): shared convictions
belief in God and an ordered universe
the great chain of being
the Gospels as God’s word; interpreted by the ministry
the rejection of the Latin mass
Specifically Puritan views on clerical organization
Anglicans: church hierarchy, with the monarch as its head
Puritans: congregations, elected ministers, churches led by magistrates
later: adopted the presbyterian structure, with elected magistrates at the head; a supreme court
(the hierarchical power of the elected leaders; roots of the American political system)
“literature”: history, captivity narrative, poetry, sermons, diaries, letters, trial transcripts, tracts
- cultivated (classic literature, English Renaissance), but suspicious of products of the imagination
- in England: Puritans closed the theatres when they came to power
- the importance of rhetoric; language: for religious purpose
- examination of communal progress: history, sermon, diary / journal, autobiography, biography
1. “Providential” History (the utopian dreams of the 1630s, ‘40s; the failures: 1680s, ‘90s) and the genres:
History and sacred geography; providential rhetoric; millennialism
Cotton Mather: “Geography must now find work for Christiano-graphy in . . . the HISTORY OF A NEW
ENGLISH ISRAEL . . . to anticipate the state of the New Jerusalem.”
a) the (medieval) theological practice of typology: the interpretation of the Old Testament in relation to the New
(Old Testament foreshadowing events of the New Testament: Old Testament type > New Testament antitype)
e.g. Moses foreshadows Jesus; the (near) sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham foreshadows the Crucifixion of Christ)
b) typological view of history (specific to New England theology and interpretation of history)
the promise of Canaan (Old Testament type) > the promise of the New Jerusalem (New Testament antitype)
> New England as the New Canaan, the Promised Land (second antitype: New England history)
e.g.:
William Bradford: Of Plymouth Plantation (written btw. 1630-1647; published in 1856)
- typological view: implied comparison of New England events with the Scriptures
- 1st book: God leads his people out of a corrupt land into a new one, shields them against trials and hardships
until they prosper and multiply
- 2nd book: enforces the biblical pattern: deaths of 1st-generation patriarchs, the spread of sin, the weakening of
the church (comparison with ancient Hebrews)
John Winthrop: The History of New England from 1630 to 1649 (pb. 1825-26, an earlier form: in 1790)
- from the journal begun on board of the Arbella
1629 agreement with the English government to establish Massachusetts Bay Company
1630 the Arbella, founded Boston
- theocracy; encouraged thousands to join them: the “Great Migration” of the 1630s
- people of wealth with servants and African slaves; agriculture, fishing, fur trade
1635 the foundation of Harvard College
Cotton Mather: Magnalia Christi Americana; Or, Ecclesiastical History of New England, from its first
planning in the year 1620, onto the Year of our Lord,1698 (written btw. 1694-98, pb. in 1702)
- typological view: compares current events directly with Old and new Testament types; discovering parallels:
how the scriptures were being fulfilled daily
2. Sermon: e.g. John Winthrop: “A Model of Christian Charity” - secular sermon, 1630 (on the Arbella)
[God] hath taken us to be his after a most strict and peculiar marriage, which will make him the more jealous
of our love and obedience . . . The God of Israel . . . has set this people that we shall be as a city on a hill. The
eyes of all people are upon us.
3. Diary: e.g. Cotton Mather: Diary of Cotton Mather for the Years 1681-1708 (pb. 1911-12)
The Diary of Cotton Mather, D.D., F.R.S. for the Year 1712 (pb. 1971)
- formulaic: the progression of the saint through an expected course to salvation
- purpose: to present a holy model of the progress to sainthood
- model: John Bunyan’s A Pilgrim's Progress (1678, 1684): life of the saint follows the course of piety of a
figural Christian
4. Autobiography: e.g. Thomas Shepard: The Autobiography of Thomas Shepard (late 1640s, pb. in 1832)
- his own preparation for grace; the conversion process
- continues having “renewed conversions”
- sainthood: viewed as a process rather than a static experience
Puritan spiritual autobiographies
The captivity narrative
1682 Mary Rowlandson: The Soveraignty (sic) and Goodness of God
1707 Rev. John Williams of Deerfield: The Redeemed Captive, Returning unto Zion
early autobiographies: main focus on the religious dimensions of the captivity experience
- later: vehicles for promulgating white hatred of Native Americans; argument for Indian removal
- initiation journey from Death to Rebirth; movement from ignorance to knowledge
- pattern: Separation from her culture
>
Transformation
>
Return
(= symbolic death)
(ordeals: movement from ignorance to knowledge) (spiritual rebirth)
Mary Rowlandson: The Sovereignty and Goodness of God, Together with the Faithfulness of His Promises
Displayed; Being a Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, Commended by her to
all that Desire to Know the Lord’s Doings to, and Dealings with Her. Especially to her Dear Children and
Relations (written in 1677, published in 1682, with Increase Mather’s preface)
- 11 weeks (10 Feb, 1676 during King Philip’s War > until May 2, 1676) in the captivity of Narragansett Indians
- immediately after returning: 1676 A True History of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson,
published in 1682 with the title The Sovereignty and Goodness of God
- account: intimate rather than abstract and theological; the human perspective on the captivity experience
- immersion in a Native American culture foreign to his own (a mixture of Puritan religious perspective and
anthropological investigation: a theological account of providence acting in specific human events and
immersion into the culture of Native Americans)
- intended to instruct rather than exploit the stereotype of the savage Indian
- the account of her “removes”: trial and deliverance
the “jeremiad” design of the narrative
(jeremiad: call for a return to a former state of innocence and moral strength that has been lost)
The next day was the Sabbath: I then remembered how careless I had been of God’s holy time; how many
Sabbaths I had lost and misspent; and how evilly I had walked in God’s sight; which lay so close upon my
Spirit, that it was easie for me to see how righteous it was with God to cut off the thread of my life, and cast
me out of his presence for ever. Yet the Lord still shewed mercy to me, and upheld me; and as he wounded
me with one hand, so he healed me with the other.
1. victim reflecting upon the period of life preceding the capture; discovering personal faults deserving God’s
punishment
2. repentant victim searching within herself; making a vow to return to earlier piety
I then remembered how careless I had been of God’s holy time, how many Sabbaths I had lost and misspent,
and how evilly I had walked in God’s sight.
3. freedom as reward for repentance; sign of divine providence and election
How righteous it was with God to cut off the thread of my life and cast me out of His presence forever. Yet
the Lord still showed mercy to me; and as He wounded me with one hand, so He healed me with the other.
- transforms her suffering into a sign of God’s goodness
- the captivity period: provided the opportunity to prepare her heart for grace: to search out the corruption in her
nature and rediscover the glory of God in His scriptures
Revivalism and the Conversion Narrative
Yale College (founded by the conservative clergy in 1701) vs. Harvard
The Great Awakening
- from the 1740s: a wave of religious awakenings and conversions under the influence of itinerant clergy
“New Lights” or “New Side” clergy (educated at Harvard) vs. “Old lights,” “Old Siders” (Yale College)
Jonathan Edwards: Personal Narrative, published posthumously, in The Life and Character of the Late
Reverend Mr. Jonathan Edwards, 1765
description of his own conversion experience
structured like earlier conversion accounts:
1. pious religiosity as a child; 2. doubts in youth; taken to sin; 3. illness; recovery and the experience of
conversion; 4. falling back to sin; 5. the moment of conversion as a mystical experience
invokes natural imagery in order to blend the worldly and the divine
the moment of conversion: in nature infused with elements of the supernatural; the divine beauty of nature
the ecstasy of conversion and “new life”
The role of language in Puritan culture
the “plain style” (the words of the Scriptures need no embellishment); but the natural world: full of signs
still: a language rich in metaphor and imagery (but applied only for religious purposes):
- to prepare the heart for grace
- to highlight the implicit meaning of ordinary events
during the 1940s and 1960s: discovery of considerable Puritan poetry
models / allusions to: the Bible, Ovid, Cicero, Virgil, Horace, Livy
the works of contemporaries: Spenser, Sidney, Shakespeare, Herbert, Vaughan
New England public poetry
1640 The Whole Book of Psalms [Faithfully Translated into English Meter] - (known as The Bay Psalm Book)
1651 revised translation with “a little more Art,” in the “plain style” literal translation from Hebrew, in English
meter
1662 Michael Wigglesworth: The Day of Doom: didactic; communal in emphasis
- account of the Day of the Last Judgment, in ballad meter
- a dream he had while ill; starts with metaphor familiar from sermons: life on earth is like sleepwalking in
darkness, unless one is awakened by the burning light of divine grace
- W. makes the metaphorical notion literal by suggesting: on the last day the entire world will undergo an
experience similar to conversion, when everybody will awaken to the divine light; even those who are doomed to
fall will see what they have lost, and “will ache in their hearts”
1637 Thomas Morton: The New English Canaan: mock elegy, satirizing New England Puritans
Morton: country gentleman in conflict with John Endicott (see Hawthorne: “The Maypole of Merry Mount”)
Anne Bradstreet (ca. 1612-1672)
- the first book of poetry written in America: The Tenth Muse (London, 1650)
- daughter of Thomas Dudley, steward of the Earl of Lincoln; educated and well-read in the classics and the
English Renaissance writers; married to Simon Bradstreet; emigration to America aboard the Arbella in 1630
- first poems: long allegorical poems in the English Renaissance tradition (“The Four Elements,” “The Four
Humours of Man,” “ The Four Ages of Man,” “The Four Monarchies”), pieces of a young poet; derivative and
pedantic
first works (much of which were not published): poetry on religious themes, full of Renaissance conventions of
poetic diction;
more mature works: written after 1645, published in The Tenth Muse;
her best: over the 1660s and ‘70s, selected after her death in 1672, in Several Poems, 1678
1650 The Tenth Muse, Lately Sprung Up in America
- her brother-in-law, John Woolbridge published her poems in England
- mostly secular themes in the English Renaissance tradition
- poems: vivid natural imagery; convey a sense of wonder over nature
- one source of doubt and frustration: the subordinated situation of 17 th-cy women (never expressed explicitly)
- never writes explicitly on woman’s subordination; she appears to accept the woman’s secondary status
Let Greeks be Greeks, and women what they are
Men have precedency and still excel,
It is but vain unjustly to wage war;
Men can do best, and women know it well.
Preeminence in all and each is yours;
Yet grant some small acknowledgement of ours.
(from the “Prologue” to The Tenth Muse)
- ironical: implies that men are not really worthy of their status of dominance; magnanimity should accompany
power
1678 Several Poems - second, posthumous volume: more polished and more personal
- includes “To My Dear and Loving Husband,” “Before the Birth of One of Her Children,” “In the Memory of
My Dear Grandchild . . .” “Here Follows Some Verses Upon the Burning of Our House”
- devoted Puritan; never questioned Puritan beliefs and authority; Puritan doctrinal correctness
- apprehension of the earthly and the divine; acknowledgment of the primacy of the other world
- candor about religious experiences; personal search for humility; never instructive or didactic
- sometimes her grief over losses and deaths is accompanied by her sense of resentment towards God, although
the speaker of the poems becomes reconciled to divine justice in the end
“Upon the Burning of Our House”
- the conflict between the Puritan doctrine of acceptance of God’s ways and her attachment to the things of the
world
- a proper Christian attitude:
I blest His name that gave and took. . . . It was his own, it was not mine
- keeps remembering the objects she loved, the trunk, the chest, her pleasant things
- reconciled in God’s judgment (“All is vanity”) in a ritualistic way: “My hope and treasure lies above”
- the sense of her grief over loss is more convincing than her doctrinal reconciliation
- combines Puritan doctrinal correctness with the personal touch that makes her poetry vivid, genuine and strong
- her candor about religious experiences never lapses into didacticism
Edward Taylor (ca. 1642-1729)
- born and raised in England; arrived in Massachusetts in 1668; graduated from Harvard in 1671 (age 29)
- pastor in Westfield, Mass.; writing: sermons, a theological treatise (The Harmony of the Gospels), poems
poetry: infused with mysticism; imaginative language; centrality of metaphor:
Natural things are not unsuitable to illustrate supernaturals by. For Christ in his parables doth illustrate
supernatural things by natural, and if it were not thus, we could arrive at no knowledge of supernatural
things, for we are not able to see above naturals.
a) God’s Determinations Touching His Elect [and the Elect’s Combat in Their Conversion and Coming up to
God in Christ together with the Comfortable Effects thereof] – completed: 1682
b) Preparatory Meditations [before my Approach to the Lord’s supper. Chiefly upon the Doctrine preached
upon the Day of administration] – written between 1682 and 1725; First and Second Series
- devotional poetry in the 16th and 17th- century meditational tradition (e.g. George Herbert); the emblem
tradition
- biblical typology and allegory; verbal ingenuity and fascination with language; subtleties of nuance and
argument
typology: interpreting events of the Old Testament as foreshadowing events of the New Testament
Taylor’s poetry can best be understood within this typological tradition:
1. takes an element from the Old Testament (character, object, image), which is the “type”;
2. makes the link between that element and its “antitype” from the New Testament;
3. relates it to his own religious experience, in a kind of symbolic gesture linking up the three
c) miscellaneous poems: inspired by observations of nature, daily life
“Huswifery” (extended metaphor of weaving)
“Upon a Wasp Child with Cold”:
Lord cleare my misted sight that I
May hence view thy Divinity,
Some sparkes whereof thou up dost hasp [close]
Within this little downy Wasp
In whose Corporation [body] wee
A school and a schoolmaster see . . .
- the world as an expression of God’s grandeur
- objects (either natural or artifacts) have transcendental significance
(Taylor’s poetic style deviates from plain Puritan language; he never considered publication)
Southern colonial satire
- unlike New England poetry in colonial times, Southern poetry is secular
- resembles English sources; it is derivative rather than original
- main models: Swift, Dryden and Pope
- ironic, satirical: annoyances, inconveniences, and problems of colonial life (anticipates 19 th-century Southern
humor)
William Byrd II (“Mr. Burrard”): poems, panegyric and satiric verse (published in miscellany or circulated)