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1、American LiteratureLecture Two: Puritanism and individualism:American Literature during the Colonial and revolutionary periodThe early settlement: the arrival of the Mayflower through the end of the 18th century: building the wilderness into a habitable place while struggling for literary expression
2、.Puritanism and individualism:The Puritans were idealists who believed that the Church should be restored to the “purity” of the first-century Church as established by Jesus Christ Himself. Hence the word “Purify”They were a varied group of religious reformers who emerged within the Church of Englan
3、d during the middle of the sixteenth century. They shared a common Calvinist theology and common criticisms of the Anglican Church and English society and government. Their numbers and influence grew steadily, culminating in the English Civil War of the 1640s and the rule of Oliver Cromwell in the 1
4、650s. With the restoration of the Stuart monarchy in 1660, Puritanism went into eclipse in England, largely because the movement was identified with the upheaval and radicalism of the Civil War and Cromwells tyrannical government, a virtual military dictatorship.But it persisted for much longer as a
5、 vital force in those parts of British North America colonized by two groups of Puritans who gradually cut their ties to the Church of England and formed separate denominations. One group, the Congregationalists, settled Plymouth in the 1620s and then Massachusetts Bay, Connecticut, and Rhode Island
6、 in the 1630s. Another group, the Presbyterians, who quickly came to dominate the religious life of Scotland and later migrated in large numbers to northern Ireland, also settled many communities in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania during the late seventeenth century and throughout the eightee
7、nth century.Puritans in both Britain and British North America sought to cleanse the culture of what they regarded as corrupt, sinful practices. They believed that the civil government should strictly enforce public morality by prohibiting vices like drunkenness, gambling, ostentatious dress, sweari
8、ng, and Sabbath-breaking. They also wished to purge churches of every vestige of Roman Catholic ritual and practicethe ruling hierarchies of bishops and cardinals, the elaborate ceremonies in which the clergy wore ornate vestments and repeated prayers from a prescribed liturgy. Accordingly, New Engl
9、ands Congregational churches were self-governing bodies, answerable to no higher authority; mid-Atlantic Presbyterian churches enjoyed somewhat less autonomy because a hierarchy of presbyteries and synods made up of leading laymen and clergymen set policy for individual congregations. But both Congr
10、egationalist and Presbyterian worship services were simple, even austere, and dominated by long, learned sermons in which their clergy expounded passages from the Bible. Perhaps most important, membership in both churches was limited to the visibly godly, meaning those men and women who lead sober a
11、nd upright lives. New England Congregationalists adopted even stricter standards for admission to their churchesthe requirement that each person applying for membership testify publicly to his or her experience of conversion. (Many Presbyterians also regarded conversion as central to being a Christi
12、an, but they did not restrict their membership to those who could profess such an experience.)I. Puritan Beliefs and ValuesA. Predestination-all events are foreknown and foreordained by God Original sinJohn Calvin(1509-1564), the great French Theologian who lived in Geneva, preached that held that h
13、uman beings were innately sinfulutterly depraved by inheriting the original sin of Adam and Eve, the biblical parents of the human race. But Calvin also taught that God, in his infinite mercy, would spare a small number of elect individuals from the fate of eternal hellfire that all mankind, owing t
14、o their corrupt natures, justly deserved. That elect group of saints would be blessed, at some point in their lives, by a profound sense of inner assurance that they possessed Gods saving grace. This dawning of hope was the experience of conversion, which might come upon individuals suddenly or grad
15、ually, in their earliest youth or even in the moments before death.B. Total Depravity and limited atonement through a special infusion of grace from God (or the salvation of a selected few) Election-God chooses who is saved and who is damned. Nagging Puritan question: Am I saved? (“Who were His elec
16、t?” that is, who would be admitted to everlasting bliss in heaven-the most reliable evidence of His approval of any individual or group was His favoring their enterprises on earth, Therefore those who prospered on earth and succeeded in amassing worldly goods, especially if they used those goods to create and amass more, were probably the one destined for heaven. Strenuous competition is encouraged by limiting the number of rewards, the n
