Puritan Life

1. Puritan Life Early American Literature

2. Pre-Puritan Literature – Oral Tradition Indian trickster tales • god, goddess, spirit, man or woman who plays tricks or disobeys normal rules • Can be foolish or wise; a villain or a hero Creation tales • Essential for creation and/or birth

3. Puritan Life • Puritans began Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1620 • Very small structures, usually 18’ square • Built with logs – chinks filled with clay • 2 rooms – living room and kitchen • Sleeping places in garret reached by a ladder • Heated by fireplaces

4. Plymouth Plantation

5. Plymouth Plantation – Later Domiciles • Larger structures built once sawmills and manufacturing of bricks established • Windows were small with diamond-shaped panes • House of Seven Gables - Nathaniel Hawthorne

6. Claflin-Richards’ House

7. Recreation - Toys • Some brought from England • Some made at home • Generally, few toys at first because children were expected to learn their catechism and to read at 2 years old… • Dolls, carved whistles and dolls, corn husk dolls

8. Recreation - Music • In England – had enjoyed instrumental, organ music • In New England – only slow, unison singing allowed (no organ accompaniment) • Tunes converted from Psalms in the Bible

9. The Bay Psalme Book

10. Recreation – Social Gatherings • Supposed to be work-related yet gave them an opportunity to talk and enjoy each others’ company • Men: hunting parties & house raisings • Women: quilting bees • Youth: apple bees & corn husking

11. Restrictions • Many laws to assure compliance with religious restrictions • 1631 – no cards/dice • 1638 – no theater nor dancing

12. Religious Beliefs • Almost anything enjoyable is a sin • Drinking, dancing, tobacco, and idleness a sin • Strict rules • Church attendance important • Strict punishment of sinners • Serious meditation in reference to one’s sins and soul • Believed it was God’s will that they separate and establish a new community • Kept personal diaries

13. Stocks and Pillory

14. Early Literature – Non-Fiction • Accounts of travels – personal diary of Capt. John Smith • To inform and convert English minds to the Separatist thinking – William Bradford’s of Plimouth Plantation • The tale of God’s will revealing itself in history • Sermons – John Cotton ( style much changed from his sermons in England) • Personal journals aimed at serious introspection – Wigglesworth’s journals • Histories – Cotton Mather’s Magnalia Christi

15. Early Literature - Fiction • Myths – tales of “travail and wandering, with the Lord’s guidance, in quest of a higher purpose” • Psalms turned into song or poetry and given meter • Poetry “rigorously defined place” – purpose to help them define and live a holy life – The New England Primer (1638?)

16. Fiction cont. • Poems about daily living – Anne Bradstreet (first published poet in America) • Poems about glory and goodness of God – Edward Taylor

17. Fiction cont. • Some novels and plays written later but set in Puritan New England - The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne - The Crucible, Arthur Miller

18. Literary Style • Non-Fiction is serious and written in “the plaine style” with “singular regard unto the simple truth in all things” – William Bradford and John Cotton (sermons) • But…all of their writing did contain imagery, rhythm, complex metaphor, allegory, scriptural analogy • Later style is called “jeremiad” – more than a tale of woe – interpretive account of the hardships and troubles with an anguished cry for the purity of earlier times – Later portions of of Plimouth Plantation

19. Literary Style cont. • Sermons – purpose was to inspire and to generate emotion and faith – Jonathan Edwards’ “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”

20. Puritan Literary Faces… • John Winthrop • Increase Mather • John Cotton • William Bradford