Transcript Chapter 1 The Colonial Period

Chapter I
The Colonial Period
From the arrival of the Mayflower
to the end of the 18th century
Contents
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Historical background
The origin of American literature
Early American writers and their thoughts
reflected in their writings.
The writers of reason and revolution
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The Mayflower ship
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The mayflower ship
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The first settlers of the United States
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The first Thanksgiving Day
Historical background
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Puritanism
Calvinism
PURITAN BELIEF
AND 'MANIFEST DESTINY'.
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They sailed from England with a dream.
Their Puritan vision was for the New World
to be a 'city set upon a hill', and a light to
the world. This later overflowed into a sense
of 'manifest destiny' and a belief that
America will lead the world into a new era of
peace and security.
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First settlers, the founding fathers, were just
Puritans from England. We know that they were
persecuted in England because of their different
religious beliefs. They hated the persecution so
that they fled to this newly-found continent where
they thought it provided them a good place to
realize their dream, to be free in religion and in
politics. These Puritans were idealists. They
believed that the Church should be restored to the
“purity” of the first century Church as established
by Jesus Christ Himself. Religion was a primary
importance to them.
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So here in America they tended to prove that they
were God’s chosen people enjoying His blessing
on this continent as in heaven. However, with
their hard work on this earth, they became more
practical. The very severity of the frontier
conditions taught them to be tougher, to be ready
for any misfortune and tragic failure that might lie
in wait for them. They worked optimistically with
indomitable courage and confident hope toward
building a New Garden of Eden in America. They
had never been daunted.
Puritanism
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Puritans
We have mentioned “puritan” frequently. But what is
Puritan? What does it mean? What is Puritanism?
As the word itself hints, Puritans wanted to make pure
their religious beliefs and preactions. The Puritan was a
would-be purifier”.
Puritanism ( A brief review of English religious
reformation)
Puritanism is a form of Protestant Christianity. Henry
VIII, seeking a divorce, breaks from the Roman
Catholic Church in 1534, creating the Church of
England (the Anglican Church).
This marks the beginning of the rise of Protestantism in
Great Britain. When Mary Tutor became Queen of
England, she didn’t tolerate protestants and forced
everyone to become catholic again. Some converted
back, some went into hiding, others were burned at the
stack, and the rest were exiled. They were called the
Marian Exiles. The exiled protestants learned the ideas
of John Calvin and adopted them. Puritanism reached
North America with the English settlers who founded
Plymouth Colony in 1620. It remained the dominant
religious force in New England throughout the 17th
and 18th centuries.
The word was coined by their opponents and was
applied to them in scorn, being intended to
ridicule them as persons who thought themselves
holier or better than others. The undaunted
Puritans claimed the name for themselves,
adopting it as a badge of honor. Puritanism
reached North America with the English settlers
who founded Plymouth Colony in 1620. It
remained the dominant religious force in New
England throughout the 17th and 18th centuries.
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Puritanism (A literary term) is a mix of English
Protestantism and Calvinism. Demanding the
simplification of doctrine and worship, and
greater strictness in religious discipline, main ideas
of Puritanism is: to restore simplicity to church
services and the authority of the Bible to theology;
pleasure and the arts opposed to; joy and laughter
suspected as a symptom of sin; and that life
should be disciplined and hard.
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Composition of the group Puritans included people
from humblest to the loftiest ranks, both, educated or
uneducated, poor or rich. They looked upon themselves
as a chosen people, and anyone who challenged their way
of life was opposing God’s will and was not be accepted.
They were thus zealous in defense of their own beliefs
but often intolerant of the beliefs of others.
So, Puritanism was dominant on the continent in this
period. Their thoughts and ideas and dreams all came
into the making of American literature.
Calvinism
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Calvinism (A literary term)
It is the rigorous form of Protestantism founded
during the European religious reformation by the
French reformer and theologian John Calvin (1509-64)
Calvinism is distinguished by belief in the Bible as the
rule of faith, denial of human freedom since the Fall.
And particularly, it puts emphasis on the arbitrary
predestination of some to salvation and others to
damnation. Calvinism was the creed of the Huguenots,
and found congenial soil in Scotland.
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Five points of Calvinism
The five points of Calvinism can be summarized by the
acronym TULIP.
*T stands for total depravity
*U for unconditional election
*L for limited atonement
*I for irresistible grace
*P for perseverance of the saints.
Here are the definitions and Scripture references
Calvinists use to defend their beliefs:
Total Depravity - As a result of Adam’s fall, the entire
human race is affected; all humanity is dead in trespasses
and sins. Man is unable to save himself (Genesis 6:5;
Jeremiah 17:9; Romans 3:10-18).
2. Unconditional Election - Because man is dead in sin, he is
unable to initiate response to God; therefore, in eternity
past God elected certain people to salvation. Election and
predestination are unconditional; they are not based on
man’s response (Romans 8:29-30; 9:11; Ephesians 1:46,11-12) because man is unable to respond, nor does he
want to.
3. Limited Atonement - Because God determined that
certain ones should be saved as a result of God’s
unconditional election, He determined that Christ should
die for the elect alone. All whom God has elected and
Christ died for will be saved (Matthew 1:21; John 10:11;
17:9; Acts 20:28; Romans 8:32; Ephesians 5:25).
4. Irresistible Grace - Those whom God elected and
Christ died for, God draws to Himself through
irresistible grace. God makes man willing to come
to Him. When God calls, man responds (John
6:37,44; 10:16).
5. Perseverance of the Saints - The precise ones
God has elected and drawn to Himself through
the Holy Spirit will persevere in faith. None
whom God has elected will be lost; they are
eternally secure (John 10:27-29; Romans 8:29-30;
Ephesians 1:3-14).
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Irresistible Grace - Those whom God elected
and Christ died for, God draws to Himself
through irresistible grace. God makes man
willing to come to Him. When God calls, man
responds (John 6:37,44; 10:16).
Perseverance of the Saints - The precise ones
God has elected and drawn to Himself through
the Holy Spirit will persevere in faith. None
whom God has elected will be lost; they are
eternally secure (John 10:27-29; Romans 8:29-30;
Ephesians 1:3-14).
The origin of American literature
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It is a common sense that American literature grew out
of a humble origin. When first settlers arrived on this
continent, it was still a virgin land on which there had
been no its own far-reaching culture or civilization
except the native Indian one. Puritans from England, at
that time, were no great writers. The literary forms, at
first were diaries, sermons, journals, letters,
commonplace books, travel books, histories, etc. The
various forms of literature occupy a major position in
literature of the early colonial period.
Early American writers and their
thoughts reflected in their writings
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Captain John Smith (1580-1631) He was one
of the founders of the colony, Jamestown, and
became the first American writer because of his
letter to the Virginia Company in London
published. His next book, A Map of Virginia:
with a Description of the Country (1612), reveals the
early settlers’ vision of the new land as
something capable of being built into a new
Garden of Eden. This book became the source
of information for the later settlers.
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William Bradford (1590-1657) He was the first
Governor of Plymouth after he led his Mayflower settlers
across the Atlantic. His literary reputation based on his
writing Of Plymouth Plantation, which reveals the
deliberations that the first settlers of North America had
regarding their colonizing undertaking,
John Winthrop He was the first Governor of the
Massachusetts Bay colony. He wrote A Model of Christian
Charity, which states that there was cause between God
and his people who entered into a covenant with God for
this work of building a new Garden of Eden in the new
world.
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Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672) She was a Puritan poet.
Both her father and her husband were governors of
Massachusetts. She wrote poems on 4 elements, the
constitutions and ages of man, the seasons of the
year, and the chief empires of the ancient world. The
agreement of most of Anne’s poems is essentially a flock
about the justice of God’s ways with His Puritan.
Summery the literary features on a whole: These
writers above were in fact servants of God. Their writings,
in content, served either God or colonial expansion or
both, in form, English literary traditions were faithfully
imitated and transplanted.
The writers of reason and revolution
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With time going, there were some other writers
who wrote for civil and religious freedom, and for
America, shaking off the fetters of the savage
and rapacious British colonial rule. These writers
sounded a clarion call for independence and
range the knell for the colonial era, such as the
writers, Roger Williams, John Woolman, Thomas
Paine, Philip Freneau and Charles Brockden
Brown.
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Roger Williams (1603-1683) With him begins
the history of religious toleration in America,
and with him, too, the history of the separation
of church and the state (P20). He came to
America in 1630 and began to preach for civil
and religious liberty and against the Puritan
oligarchy of Boston. He established the “Rhode
Island Way” to encourage religious toleration,
and protected Indian rights. His The Bloody Tenet
of Persecution for the Cause of Conscience (1644)
furiously attacks the “soul-killing” requirement
of individual. He called for democratic
government.
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John Woolman (1720-1772) Born in a Quaker family in
New Jersey, he finally became a preacher. He spoke
against total depravity, original sin and limited
atonement, and attacked all forms of iniquity, be it a
social evil or the atrocious slavery system. He wrote
essays like Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes and
A Plea for the Poor, in which he tried to plead for the right
of all men and for the abolition of the slavery system.
He also kept a “Journal”, which has been influential as a
moral classic both in 19th century and in modern times.
Thoreau and the New England Transcendentalism
derived great inspiration from Woolman.
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Thomas Paine (1737-1809) He was one of the continual,
unswerving fight for the rights of man. His Common Sense
made him a major influence in American revolution. And
this booklet was received in the colonies both as a
justification for their cause of independence and as an
encouragement to the fighting people. His American Crisis
came out at one of the darkest moments of the
revolution when Washington’s troops had suffered one of
the worst defeats in the war and were in the process of
retreating. Washington had this book read to his troops, it
proved a heartening stimulus. We may say that without
Paine’s writings, there might have been no army for
Washington to lead. Later, he published his The Rights of
Man and The Age of Reason.
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Philip Freneau (1752-1832) He was the most
important poet of 18th century America.
He was a most notable representative of
dawning nationalism in American literature,
using his poems in the service of a nation
struggling for independence, and writing verses
for the righteous cause of his people and
exposing British colonial savageries.
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Features of his works
He has been called the “father of American poetry”.
Some of his most famous works, with their lyric quality,
their sensuous imagery, and their fresh perception of
nature and “noble savage”, are distinctly of American
style. He managed to peer through pervasive atmosphere
of imitativeness, see life around directly, and appreciate
the natural scenes on the new continent and the native
Indian civilization, which are revealed in his poems, like
The Wild Honey Suckle, The Indian Burying Ground and so
forth. Some of his themes and images have a great
influence on the works of such 19th century American
Romantic writers as Cooper, Emerson, Poe and Melville.
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Charles Brockden Brown (1771-1810) He was a novelist.
A. His first novel, Wieland: or, The Transformation: An American Tale
(1798) has been regarded as the first American novel.
B. He had four major novels: Edgar Huntly (1799), Ormond (1799),
Arthur Mervyn (1800), and Wieland (1798).
C. He was an imitator, for example, the Gothic features of his
works. But he was aware that his inspiration was rooted in his own
land, its new life and energy.
D. Brown’s works can be noted as psychological works because he
explored the inner world of his characters (not always controlled by
reason, but by emotion). These opened up areas of interest for
latter writers, like Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne to
further explore.
Assignment
1. Terms to be defined:
1) Puritanism 2) Calvinism
2. Who has been called the Father of American poetry”? Tell
the feature of his works.
3. What is the first American novel? What kind of work can it
be noted? Why? And who is the author?
4. What were the literary forms in the colonial period?
5. In the colonial period, there were two groups of writers, one
served God, and the other called for reason and revolution.
Name at least three of the writers in each group.
6. What are the four elements in Anne Bradstreet’s poems?