Literature

• Moses instructed the Israelites to stand still and see the salvation of the Lord during the crossing of the Red Sea.
• John Smith (1580-1631) was a writer during the 17th - 19th centuries.
• John Smith is known for A Description of New England (1616) and The General History of Virginia (1624).
• Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay Colony were colonized in 1620.
• William Bradford (1590-1657) was a writer during the 17th - 19th centuries.
• William Bradford is known for Of Plymouth Plantation (1620-1647).
• Puritan beliefs include Predestination (Calvin’s idea) that everybody has been already assigned for heaven or hell.
• Puritan beliefs also include Providence, the idea that nothing happens without God’s will.
• In the Puritan world, every fact was interrogated for its meaning.
• History is nothing more but progression toward the fulfilment of God’s design on Earth, according to the Puritans.
• Puritan texts were mostly written as sermons, aiming at self-improvement and self-examination.
• Diaries were also written, aiming at self-improvement and self-examination.
• Chronicles were written, expressing experience with building a new country.
• Roger Williams questioned a number of Puritan rules and was the first one to introduce the idea of separation of state and church.
• Mary Rowlandson advises to rely on God Himself and to have no dependence but on Him.
• If trouble from smaller matters begins to arise in Mary Rowlandson, she has something at hand to check herself with, and say, why am I troubled?
• Cotton Mather (1663-1728) wrote Magnalia Christi Americana: Or The Ecclesiastical History of New England (1702) which covers the years 1620-1698.
• Roger Williams founded Rhode Island and wrote A Key Into the Language of America (1643) based on his studies in Indian languages.
• Mary Rowlandson states that if she had had the world, she would have given it for her freedom, or to have been a servant to a Christian.
• Mary Rowlandson (1637-1711) wrote The Sovereignty and Goodness of God: Being a Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson.
• Mary Rowlandson states that the Lord has shown her the vanity of outward things and that they are but a shadow, a blast, a bubble, and things of no continuance.
• Puritans forged a new, special agreement with God, like that between God and the people of Israel.
• The Puritan community would be a "city upon a hill," watched by the world.
• Mary Rowlandson describes the barbarous behavior of Native Americans during the King Philip's War.
• The Colonial Beginnings PART IIPURITAN POETRYMichael Wigglesworth (1631 - 1705) • The Day of Doom (1662)The Bay Psalm Book (1640) is a metrical translation from Hebrew into English.
• Edward Taylor (1642 - 1729) • Preparatory Meditations (complete works published in 1960)Anne Bradstreet (1612 - 1672) • The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up into America (1647)from Prologue I am obnoxious to each carping tongue Who says my hand a needle better fits A Poet’s Pen all scorn I should thus wrong, For such despite they cast on female wits If what I do prove well, it won’t advance, They’ll say it’s stol’n, or else it was by chance … Give thyme or Parsley wreath, I ask no Bays This mean and unrefined ore of mine Will make your glist’ring gold but more to shine.
• George Whitefield, an 18th century figure, described the slender thread on which humans hang, with the flames of divine wrath flashcard>
• The American context includes the Revolution and the crisis in American life caused by the Revolution, which made artists self-conscious about American subjects, but the Revolution rarely proved to be a usable subject for literature and art.
• The Age of Reason also led to the universe seeming more rational and benevolent than it had been represented by the Puritan doctrine.
• The world became more comprehensible during the Age of Reason, as instead of God’s hand, humans had physical laws.
• The 18th century was a period of European influence, scientific development (scientific revolution), and political developments emphasizing liberty, democracy, and republicanism.
• The American revolution was the country’s political Great Awakening.
• The Age of Reason was characterized by the universe being viewed as an orderly system and by the application of reason, making it comprehensible to humans.
• The Great Awakening 1730s - 1740s• Jonathan Edwards (1703 - 1758) "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God ”
• In terms of literary works, we mostly have purposive and public rather than private literary works.
• Thomas Jefferson is known for his work Notes on the State of Virginia (1781) and The Declaration of Independence (1776), which includes the famous line "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
• Benjamin Franklin is known for his work The way to wealth (1758), which includes the phrases "Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labor wears; while the used key is always bright", "It is hard for an empty sack to stand upright", and "At the working man's house hunger looks in, but dares not enter".
• Hector St. John de Crèvecœur is known for his work Letters From an American Farmer (1782), which includes the line "An American is a person who, leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds."
• Thomas Paine is known for his works Common Sense (January 1776) and The Crisis (late 1776).
• O sinner! Consider the fearful danger you are in: it is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath, that you are held over in the hand of that God, whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you, as against many of the damned in hell.