- Bradstreet's stuff is the first "imaginative literature" in our course
- she was better-educated than most men in her time
- Puritans wouldn't have published a woman's writing
- so her brother-in-law took some of it to London and got it published
- it was a big success, so it got a print run in America
- then it was an even bigger success in America
Anne Bradstreet was a woman, a poet, and a Puritan.
Bradstreet as a woman
- she was very self-conscious about being a female poet
- poetry was really only read by men at the time
- in her foreword, her brother-in-law has to assure the reader that the poems were actually written by a woman
- he explains that she still did all the housework, and that poetry was just a hobby
- her Queen Elizabeth poem is a try at Spenser's hand
- it has lines about the power of women
- it has a show-offin' style to back the message up
Bradstreet as a poet
- she intended for her poems to be read, but she was surprised to see them published
- she never read her poems at family gatherings or anything
- she describes her poems as her children
- this makes her sound like some kind of God
- she points out that women give birth, and that the muses are women
- pun: both of those have feet
Bradstreet as a Puritan
- her poems have places where her faith waivers
- Taylor called her an influence
- she references a lot of Greek myths
- in the letter to her children, she admits she didn't always believe
- she says she was finally convinced of God by the "wondrous works" He'd made
- she always kept her mind to the afterlife
"Man was made for endless immortality."
--Anne "Redundant" Bradstreet
Bradstreet's poem, "Prologue"
- in the second edition of her book, "Prologue" apologizes for being untalented
- she says that her bad poems will help people to recognize great poems all the better
- she writes that she is not in a league with men -- but perhaps she is not fully sincere
- she says she is too simple to discuss wars and kings -- but she uses both in her Elizabeth poem later in the book
- Bradstreet was best loved for her "private" poems
- one where her house burns down
- one where she's pregnant
- one where her husband is away from her
- most love poems are about courtly admiration
- hers is about deep marital symbiosis
- American literature always tends to value someone's individual experiences
- every Puritan assumed he was one of the Elect
- this means they always had an eye to the afterlife
- Bradstreet wishes they wouldn't be so distracted by their luck
- Rowlandson wanted to be a prisoner, rather than go to the afterlife
- she writes for the same reason as Bradstreet
- that is, they want to bring glory to God
- this is technically the only reason a Puritan would be allowed to write something
- Rowlandson wrote the first captivity narrative
- captivity narratives were very popular until the twentieth century
- the longer people kept writing them, the less realistic the stories got
- Last of the Mohicans is a successful capitivity narrative
- in most capitivity narratives, the captive is a woman
Five traits of a Captivity Narrative:
1. a sudden and unprovoked attack
2. excessive and bloody violence
3. deprivations and depredations
4. escape or ransom
5. happy reunion ending
- Rowlandson mentions her hunger, but doesn't mention the Indians' hunger
- whenever the Indians do something nice, she credits it to Providence
- she refers to her six-year-old as "her baby"
Nice Things Done by Indians for the Captive Mary Rowlandson:
- they let her child ride a horse
- when she thinks they'll steal it, they let her take the horse with it
- they find her a Bible
- they share their sleeping-hut
- they give her child a burial (even though she complained that it wasn't a Christian burial)
The Puritans' favourite story is the story of the Chosen People crossing the desert. It made them think of themselves crossing the ocean, which made them think they were the new Chosen People.
Their second-favourite story was probably the one about Job. God liked to test Job by giving him cruel setbacks in his life. Puritans could use this story to see everything bad as a test from God.
- Rowlandson's writing is, in its way, Puritan propaganda
- in the scene where her sisters is killed, Rowlandson thinks first to tell us the story of how her sister was born again by Scriptures
- Rowlandson was only published because the church insisted on it
The "lesson" in Mary Rowlandson's captivity story is that you should always keep faith in God.
Friday, 21 September 2007
Friday, 14 September 2007
September 12 - Bradford and Winthrop
- Henry VIII split the church in 1534
- this was not for religious reasons but for divorce reasons
- this sparked a Puritan movement
- Anglicans thought Catholic churches were too orante and impersonal
- Puritans thought Anglican churches were too ornate and impersonal
- Catholic and even Anglican masses were conducted in Latin
- Puritanism was seen as a threat to stability
- so it was made illegal
- so some Puritans moved to the Netherlands
- after ten years, the Netherlands was threatened with an invasion from Spain
- so the Puritans bought some land near Jamestown, Virginia
- then they went to Plymouth instead
- a PURITAN is someone who thinks the Church of England needs a revolution
- a PILGRIM is someone who quits the church and moves away to start his own church
- Winthrop was with the Massachusetts Bay colony
- Bradford was with the Plymouth colony
- both colonies first bought their land from the British crown
- both colonies were supposed to have a religious government
Here are six new ideas to be implemented in Plymouth:
Democratic election of church leaders.
Reading of the Bible by common people.
Intermediares not needed to speak to God.
Vernacular used in services.
Equality of every Puritan before God.
Sermons as a central part of the church service.
- Bradford's ship (1620) had 100 Puritans, and some adventurers
- Winthrop's ship (1630) had 700 Puritans
- By 1645 or so, 20 000 Puritans had arrived in America
- by 1700, very few Americans were still Puritan
Here are five things Puritans believe in:
Total depravity -- Everyone's born a sinner.
Unconditional Election -- God has already chosen the Elect and the hellbound.
Limited atonement -- Christ only died for the sins of the elect.
Irresistable grace -- The Elect and the hellbound can't change their status.
Perseverance of the saints -- The Elect have a duty to run the community.
The Pilgrims sailed to America to be free from England.
But the Pilgrims had very little freedom from their own rules.
Bradford
- Bradford attributes all events to God
- when the villain on the ship gets sick, Bradford thinks God is punishing him
- he refers to the Indians as "savages" before he meets them
- Bradford sees the Puritans scrambling for land, ten years later
- he sees that the new church has already split
- he is already associating America with materialism
- he wrote his book to remind the people of the Mayflower Compact they'd signed
- he warned them about backsliding
- they hadn't come to America for the wealth
"This, I fear, will be the ruin of New England."
-- Bradford
Winthrop
- Puritans believed themselves to be God's chosen people
- Winthrop says they have a duty to make good on this choice
- Winthrop was an idealist, speaking before the ship sailed
- his famous line is about a "city upon a hill"
- he believes that the colony will set an example, and that others will try to follow
- his 700 Puritans all signed the Arbella Covenant
- he claims that people have different ways as a part of God's balance in the world
- his example, ironically enough, is about rich and poor people
- this was not for religious reasons but for divorce reasons
- this sparked a Puritan movement
- Anglicans thought Catholic churches were too orante and impersonal
- Puritans thought Anglican churches were too ornate and impersonal
- Catholic and even Anglican masses were conducted in Latin
- Puritanism was seen as a threat to stability
- so it was made illegal
- so some Puritans moved to the Netherlands
- after ten years, the Netherlands was threatened with an invasion from Spain
- so the Puritans bought some land near Jamestown, Virginia
- then they went to Plymouth instead
- a PURITAN is someone who thinks the Church of England needs a revolution
- a PILGRIM is someone who quits the church and moves away to start his own church
- Winthrop was with the Massachusetts Bay colony
- Bradford was with the Plymouth colony
- both colonies first bought their land from the British crown
- both colonies were supposed to have a religious government
Here are six new ideas to be implemented in Plymouth:
Democratic election of church leaders.
Reading of the Bible by common people.
Intermediares not needed to speak to God.
Vernacular used in services.
Equality of every Puritan before God.
Sermons as a central part of the church service.
- Bradford's ship (1620) had 100 Puritans, and some adventurers
- Winthrop's ship (1630) had 700 Puritans
- By 1645 or so, 20 000 Puritans had arrived in America
- by 1700, very few Americans were still Puritan
Here are five things Puritans believe in:
Total depravity -- Everyone's born a sinner.
Unconditional Election -- God has already chosen the Elect and the hellbound.
Limited atonement -- Christ only died for the sins of the elect.
Irresistable grace -- The Elect and the hellbound can't change their status.
Perseverance of the saints -- The Elect have a duty to run the community.
The Pilgrims sailed to America to be free from England.
But the Pilgrims had very little freedom from their own rules.
Bradford
- Bradford attributes all events to God
- when the villain on the ship gets sick, Bradford thinks God is punishing him
- he refers to the Indians as "savages" before he meets them
- Bradford sees the Puritans scrambling for land, ten years later
- he sees that the new church has already split
- he is already associating America with materialism
- he wrote his book to remind the people of the Mayflower Compact they'd signed
- he warned them about backsliding
- they hadn't come to America for the wealth
"This, I fear, will be the ruin of New England."
-- Bradford
Winthrop
- Puritans believed themselves to be God's chosen people
- Winthrop says they have a duty to make good on this choice
- Winthrop was an idealist, speaking before the ship sailed
- his famous line is about a "city upon a hill"
- he believes that the colony will set an example, and that others will try to follow
- his 700 Puritans all signed the Arbella Covenant
- he claims that people have different ways as a part of God's balance in the world
- his example, ironically enough, is about rich and poor people
Saturday, 8 September 2007
September 7 - American Lit Before 1620
- Puritans thought they could just "claim" America
- they thought God was presenting it to them
- thinking you can just take someone's land is called "manifest destiny"
- pilgrims got great help from the native peoples, but still took their land
- Columbus landed in Hispaniola (the Dominican) in 1492
- he made local people into slaves right away
- the first African slaves came to America in 1501
- it was 364 years before someone did something about this
- America did not join the First War until they thought America might be attacked
- this happened because of the Lusitania and the Zimmerman Telegram
- this was in 1917, in the second half of the war
- many Americans were still reluctant about the project
- America was the only country to end the war more powerful than it was at the start
- America did not join the Second War until Pearl Harbour got bombed
- that was on December 7, 1941
- in both wars, America had at first just supplied the British a lot
- in the War of 1812, Canadian British destroyed Richmond, Virginia
- Richmond, Virginia was the American capital at the time
The Monroe Doctrine
- it passed in 1823
- it instructed Americans to ignore things outside of America
- it instructed foreigners to please leave America alone
- it said, "Do not focus on the international."
- Columbus's writing set the tone for all future American writing
- to our class, his writing made more difference than his sailing
- from 1492 to 1620, American literature was "literature of exploration"
Four things about Literature of Exploration:
- WONDER
- WITNESS
- CONQUEST
- POLITICS
Some phrases Columbus overused when he wrote about the New World:
- marvel
- variety
- diversity
- thousands of kinds
Columbus, then, was writing with a lot of WONDER.
- in much American writing, it's important to be in tune with nature
- this is seen as a way to know who you really are
- in much American writing, there is a strong sense of one's home
- in Columbus, he's somewhere completely different from home
WITNESS
- Cabasa de Vaca was a Spanish explorer
- his ship crashed and he spent nine years lost in Florida
- when he was found, he came back to Spain and wrote a detailed memoir
CONQUEST
- European explorers wrote about the native people they found in America
- this is historically important, because the native people and customers didn't last very long
- such heritage was not valued then, but would be later
- this also served to make the natives even easier to defeat
POLITICS
- the Declaration of Independence is completely defined by when it was written
- Columbus's letters involved his struggled to remain in charge of his colony
- thanks to the Gutenberg press (1440), Columbus's 1492 letters got published all across Europe
- if Columbus hadn't been writing letters home, people wouldn't have cared about the New World
- The Tempest was based on an American shipwreck in the news in Shakespeare's time
- Spain was too far away to defend its colonies
- Spain was also too far away to manage its colonies
- Columbus's letters home asked permission for things he obviously would have just done
- the distance problem played out in the colonies' eventual rebellions against Britain
- taxation without representation, and so forth
- around 1600, the Spanish colonies are collapsing and the French fur trade colonies are thriving
- then around 1620, the English Puritans show up to the New World and sort of take over
Columbus and Vespucci
- from 1498 to 1501, Vespucci sailed from Maryland to Argentina
- he made quite a good map of the new coastline
- when Columbus went sailing for a round-earth India passage, he kept saying it was mentioned in the Bible, and in Marco Polo
- his journey was an attempt to confirm what people knew already
- Vespucci's journey was an attempt to find out some new things that people didn't know yet
- Vespucci was like the Renaissance, while Columbus was like the Middle Ages
- they thought God was presenting it to them
- thinking you can just take someone's land is called "manifest destiny"
- pilgrims got great help from the native peoples, but still took their land
- Columbus landed in Hispaniola (the Dominican) in 1492
- he made local people into slaves right away
- the first African slaves came to America in 1501
- it was 364 years before someone did something about this
- America did not join the First War until they thought America might be attacked
- this happened because of the Lusitania and the Zimmerman Telegram
- this was in 1917, in the second half of the war
- many Americans were still reluctant about the project
- America was the only country to end the war more powerful than it was at the start
- America did not join the Second War until Pearl Harbour got bombed
- that was on December 7, 1941
- in both wars, America had at first just supplied the British a lot
- in the War of 1812, Canadian British destroyed Richmond, Virginia
- Richmond, Virginia was the American capital at the time
The Monroe Doctrine
- it passed in 1823
- it instructed Americans to ignore things outside of America
- it instructed foreigners to please leave America alone
- it said, "Do not focus on the international."
- Columbus's writing set the tone for all future American writing
- to our class, his writing made more difference than his sailing
- from 1492 to 1620, American literature was "literature of exploration"
Four things about Literature of Exploration:
- WONDER
- WITNESS
- CONQUEST
- POLITICS
Some phrases Columbus overused when he wrote about the New World:
- marvel
- variety
- diversity
- thousands of kinds
Columbus, then, was writing with a lot of WONDER.
- in much American writing, it's important to be in tune with nature
- this is seen as a way to know who you really are
- in much American writing, there is a strong sense of one's home
- in Columbus, he's somewhere completely different from home
WITNESS
- Cabasa de Vaca was a Spanish explorer
- his ship crashed and he spent nine years lost in Florida
- when he was found, he came back to Spain and wrote a detailed memoir
CONQUEST
- European explorers wrote about the native people they found in America
- this is historically important, because the native people and customers didn't last very long
- such heritage was not valued then, but would be later
- this also served to make the natives even easier to defeat
POLITICS
- the Declaration of Independence is completely defined by when it was written
- Columbus's letters involved his struggled to remain in charge of his colony
- thanks to the Gutenberg press (1440), Columbus's 1492 letters got published all across Europe
- if Columbus hadn't been writing letters home, people wouldn't have cared about the New World
- The Tempest was based on an American shipwreck in the news in Shakespeare's time
- Spain was too far away to defend its colonies
- Spain was also too far away to manage its colonies
- Columbus's letters home asked permission for things he obviously would have just done
- the distance problem played out in the colonies' eventual rebellions against Britain
- taxation without representation, and so forth
- around 1600, the Spanish colonies are collapsing and the French fur trade colonies are thriving
- then around 1620, the English Puritans show up to the New World and sort of take over
Columbus and Vespucci
- from 1498 to 1501, Vespucci sailed from Maryland to Argentina
- he made quite a good map of the new coastline
- when Columbus went sailing for a round-earth India passage, he kept saying it was mentioned in the Bible, and in Marco Polo
- his journey was an attempt to confirm what people knew already
- Vespucci's journey was an attempt to find out some new things that people didn't know yet
- Vespucci was like the Renaissance, while Columbus was like the Middle Ages
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