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The puritan context in american literature
The puritan context in american literature
Puritanism American literature
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1. The Church of England was already turbulent with the tension between the antiquated Catholics and the emerging Protestants. The Puritans were part of a subset of Protestants, so naturally one would expect them to have resolved their issues with the Church of England throughout Protestant control. While the Puritans certainly favored Protestant rule over the Catholics, with whom they had a diametric set of beliefs, they were never favored by the Protestant rulers in turn. Obviously, the Puritans regarded themselves as worthy of their opinions and of a higher place in government.
In a difficult society like the Puritans, there are often individuals who are willing to find their own peace even if it means going against the society,
The Puritans lived with religion and politics intertwined.
How Puritans were required to follow a certain lifestyle, they were enforced to adopt the divine law and live according to it. Any alteration to this system meant the parting of their chance of salvation. Edwards continually makes allusions about Gods wrath, this is used as tool to instill fear on its audience. Consequently he believed fear was an imperative tool
Jonathan Edwards’s sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” and Anne Bradstreet’s “Upon the Burning of Our House” seem at first glance quite similar to one another regarding context, however, after taking a closer look, it becomes apparent that there are some substantial differences. These differences cannot be understood without the knowledge of cultural context concerning the Puritan belief system and their lifestyle. “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” was written with the sole purpose of scaring and intimidating the people that purtinans believed to be sinners. Edwards’s work contributed to a movement called “The Great Awakening”. It’s objective was to make the so-called ‘sinners’ aware of their wrongdoings and compel them to repent.
The most serious crime of all crimes for colonies was having a pact with the devil or Satan. This was a fear that was based on religion and with the fear of going against God. “And, what was conditional and relative was always subject to change and reform. Puritans, as well known, believed they discerned God ’s will (often in the Old Testament), and did not hesitate on that basis to purify an old society— or establish a holy commonwealth in the New World.
While the first-generation Puritans believed this, their offspring who knew nothing of the religious hardship back home would rather have personal indulgences, which puts strain on the Errand. Adding on to that, the idea of being a collective group changed into the Puritans becoming more focused on defining themselves away from the Church as seen with King Phillip’s War. The war represents a change with the second and third generation Puritans who needed new, secular, enemies to define them as told by Marone when he says “The Puritans groped back to the tried and true-they found terrible new enemies to define them” (Marone 33). The Puritans defining themselves through fighting the Natives in King Phillip’s war, totally undermines the Puritans’ original enemy of being eternally damned. Furthermore, the Puritan Dilemma of the conflict of old vs new impacted the Puritans’ view of nature, as seen with the Salem Witch Trials and how God was punishing them for straying from the Errand.
In this essay, I will analyze the poem Verses Upon the Burning of Our House (July 10th, 1666) by Anne Bradstreet, a puritan who most critics consider to be America’s first “authentic poet. The poem is based on a true story as Anne’s house really did burn down and illustrates her meditations on this event, the pain she felt after losing her home and the effect it had on her faith. The main theme is Anne’s struggle to not become attached to material things. I will begin by explaining the rhyme, style, and tone of the poem, continue by explaining which literary devices and interesting features we can find and the effect they have on the reader, then I will analyze the poem and finally I will give a brief conclusion. Verses Upon the Burning of Our House is a poem written in couplets in iambic tetrameter scheme which makes the story flow nicely.
The Puritan’s goal of coming to the New World was not to create a new life, but to create the ideal model of living for the “corrupt” inhabitants of England. This was coined “The Errand”, the Puritans desire to establish a City Upon a Hill that others could look up to and imitate in order to receive God’s grace. The Puritans failed at building their City Upon a Hill (creating a perfect religious, economic, and political community), however the long-term effects of their efforts have influenced American moral politics throughout its history. The Puritans forever had the attitude of a community that had successfully established a City Upon a Hill. The Puritan lifestyle was heavily influenced not only by religion, but also inside of that, morality.
The value of earthly treasures versus eternal treasures is a key theme in Anne Bradstreet’s “Upon the Burning of Our House.” Throughout the poem, Bradstreet uses the following three examples to discover her feelings about losing her earthly treasures in the house fire and moving toward eternal treasures: her earthly possessions, her position in society, and her ultimate choice to focus on eternity. Anne Bradstreet is a woman who was the first English colonial poet. while she resided in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. She wrote this poem around July of 1666 to describe the event of her home burning to the ground.
In puritanism literature, everything is being related to God. To the Puritans a perfect society is created only through conformation
Puritans are a people with a very strong belief in both God and the power of God. When people see power, they interpret it in different ways. Some know of power through anger and impulse, while others see power through the goodness the powerful one shows. Although Anne Bradstreet and Jonathan Edwards are both puritan poets, their writings convey mainly different, though sometimes similar, views on God because they have different perceptions of His will and the use of His power. Anne Bradstreet listens to and accepts anything that God wishes, and that is shown through her poem Upon the Burning of my House.
As children, people have silly fears. However, when they grow old their fears develop and change. In the puritan era much of the literature written was tied in with fear. The puritans were a godly people, always living according to The Bible. During the literary puritan, era the theme of fear evolves from the fear of God to the fear of reputation.
Although the natural decider of one’s power in the Puritan society is land, the Devil, himself, holds ultimate power; despite the fact that he does not appear as a human figure, he controls the thoughts and actions of the Puritan
Essentially, Puritans are expected to follow a strict set of religious and moral guidelines from which their actions and morality are derived. According to Hall’s A Reforming People, these moral expectations first introduced by the pilgrims were the driving force behind the power that the Puritan ministry had over society: “Ministers and laypeople looked first to congregations as the place where love, mutuality, and righteousness would flourish, and second to civil society. …Alongside love, mutuality, and righteousness they placed another set of values summed up in the word “equity.” Employed in a broad array of contexts, the concept of equity conveyed the colonists’ hopes for justice and fairness in their social world.”
