The Puritan Legacy

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The Puritan Legacy

• American Literatures Colonial Roots

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Remember the Pilgrims?
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Pilgrims and Puritans

• The Pilgrims were part of a group of English
  Puritans called the Separatists who fled
  persecution in England.
• The Pilgrims traveled to America aboard the
  Mayflower and landed at Plymouth in 1620.
• Puritans is a general term for English
  Protestants who wanted to purify the Church of
  England.
• The Puritans objected to the rituals,
  decorations, and organization of the Church of
  England. They wanted a simpler form of worship
  and organization.

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A Puritan Time Line
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What the Puritans Believed

• Religion is a personal, inner experience.
• Humans are wicked by nature, and most are marked
  for damnation.
• A chosen few can be saved through the grace of
  God.
• Hard work and worldly success are signs of Gods
  grace.
• Education is essential in order to read the Word
  of God.
• Puritans have a divine mission to save the world

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Grace The Puritan Ideal

• GraceGods special favorwas the only way to
  escape an eternity in Hell.
• People did not know for certain if they had
  grace, but they could feel the arrival of grace
  as an intense emotion.
• People who had grace were among the elect
  (saved).
• People who did not have grace were among the
  unregenerate (damned).

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Grace The Puritan Ideal

• The presence of grace was demonstrated by a
  persons outward behavior. People with grace
  displayed

• self-reliance
• personal responsibility
• industriousness
• temperance
• simplicity

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Puritan Government--Theocracy

• In Theory
• Every individual had an equal covenant with God.
• Laws came from God, as revealed in scripture.
• In Practice
• Most people yielded authority to those seen as
  the saintly elect (i.e. elders of the church,
  ministers)
• Conformity and obedience took precedence over
  individual rights.

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Puritan Literature

• What the Puritans Read
• The Bible and other religious texts
• Why They Read
• Puritans stressed individual responsibility for
  spiritual development.
• Every person was responsible for reading and
  understanding the Bible.

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Puritan Literature
What the Puritans Wrote

• Sermons, essays, and poems on spiritual and
  religious subjects
• Diaries and histories that recorded inner and
  outer events of their lives
• Why They Wrote
• Puritans used writing to explore their lives for
  signs of grace and to describe the workings of
  God in their communities.

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Plain Style

• Puritans favored a plain style of writing. Plain
  style is a way of writing that stresses
  simplicity and clarity of expression. Plain style
• emphasizes uncomplicated sentences and the use of
  everyday words from common speech
• avoids elaborate figures of speech and imagery

There is nothing between you and hell but the
air it is only the power and mere pleasure of
God that holds you up. from Sinners in the
Hands of an Angry God by Jonathan Edwards
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Salem Believers Run Amok

• 1692Girls suffer from mysterious illness in
  Salem, Massachusetts.
• Doctors blame witchcraft.
• Mass hysteria erupts neighbors accuse one
  another.
• In the end, about 150 people were accused, and 20
  were executed.

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What Happened to the Puritans?

• The Age of Faith gradually gave way to the Age of
  Reason.
• Philosophers and scientists stressed the
  importance of using reason, rather than religion,
  to explain how the world operates.
• The Puritans didnt disappeartheir culture was
  absorbed into the colonial mainstream.

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The Puritan Legacy

• In the United States, we generally value
• individual rights and responsibilities
• equality of individuals
• literacy and education
• spiritual and worldly rewards for hard work