Scarlet Letters: Puritanism and Anglo-American Literary Culture

Mini-Conference Program

December 14, 2011

Session One: Issues in Puritanism

Josh Soloc, “The Image of

Puritanism in the 17^th Century”

Nick Brott, “The Decline of Puritan

Faith: The More It Is Pushed, the

Less It Is Followed”

Q & A

Session Two: Puritan Women Writers

Jonathan Rice, “Gender Maneuvers in Anne Bradstreet’s ‘Lamentation for Saul and Jonathan’”

Jason Vanfossen, “The Subject of Subjectivity in Autobiography: Lucy Hutchinson’s Autobiography and the Rise of the Public and Private Self”

Q & A

 Break

Session Three: Shades of Milton

Christy McDowell, “Robert Catesby and the Devil: How History Influenced Milton”

Jessica Neusenschwander, “Godly Self-Fashioning in Paradise Lost: The Importance of Intent”

Cody Mejeur, “Following the Grey Pilgrim: Tracing Protestant Influence in Middle Earth”

Q & A

Session Four: Prosy Puritans: Narrative in Bunyan and Defoe

Ben Moran, “‘Sweetnesse Readie Penn’d’: Bunyan’s Negotiation of Faith and Aesthetics in      The Pilgrim’s Progress”

Angela Kramer, “Words and Their Impact on Interpretation”

Brandon Jennings, “Robinson Crusoe: An Examination of Character”

Q & A

Break

Session Five: Witches, Warlocks, and Mathers---Oh My!

Kate Stearns, “Historical Context of the Salem Witch Trials and Textual Analysis of Relating Works”

Sheridan Steelman, “Witchcraft in New England: Fear of Female Agency”

Jen Ptacek, “Cotton Mather’s Innocence in the Salem Witch Trials”

Q & A

Session Six: Puritan Legacies

Jen Kruger, “O Blessed be God for this Word: Puritan Involvement in the Production of the King James Bible”

Briana Barnett, "Lessons Unlearned: The Puritan Educational System and Modern

Implications"

Q & A

Final Comments: Bradburn and Slawinski

Class Recap 12/7

Enfield, Massachusetts

Jessica Neuenschwander's presentation on and close reading of Jonathan Edwards's sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" started us off. From there we moved to some background on the Great Awakening and a general discussion of Edwards's mix of reason and emotion as essential to the religious experience.  We looked closely at his tract on religious affections and at his "Personal Narrative."  We also briefly touched on Edwards's depiction of nature and how it differs from earlier representations and his interest in the new science of the Enlightenment.

In the last 25 minutes of class, we returned to the essays written on the first day of class and the slide of "Puritans."  We reexamined the question "what is a Puritan?" and inquired into how the definition found in those essays from day one might have been altered through the semester's study of Puritan texts.

Class Recap 11/30

A Professor leading class discussion.

This week's class was on Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. We began with a presentation from Josh, who gave us biographical information about Defoe and explained how some of his life experiences are reflected in the details of the story. Josh also described several of the possible literary origins of the book. He didn't have time to elaborate on "Robinson Crusoe in Space," but maybe he'll tell you about it if you ask him.

Brandon followed with a presentation on the critical reception of Robinson Crusoe, the difficulty of identifying its formal genre (spiritual biography? guidebook? travel narrative?), its status as literature, and its continuing importance, all within the framework of the practices of current writers and teachers of fiction. A highlight for the class was Brandon's hand-drawn cartoon, "Crusoe is a Kid Killer."

The second half of the class period was devoted to discussing narrative strategies in Robinson Crusoe. We debated Damrosch's claim that Crusoe's psychology is essentially behaviorist; then we discussed the literal and symbolic significance of animals in book. We examined the role of the Journal as an internal text, and finally compared Defoe's narrative strategies with those of Milton and Bunyan.

Class Recaps 11/9 and 11/16

On November 9, class began with Jen Kruger's useful presentation about the captivity narrative as a genre and Mary Rowlandson's text in particular, covering its publication and reception.  From there, we moved to a brief discussion of the Tennenhouse and Armstrong article about the influence of Rowlandson's experiences on the development of the English novel and Richardson in particular.

After the break, Christy McDowell introduced postcolonial theory as a way of approaching American literature and captivity narratives.  This led to a general discussion of the captivity narratives found in Puritans Among the Indians; the class ended with each participant focusing on a particular item of interest from the texts.

On November 16, Lucy Hutchinson's autobiographical fragment was discussed first, with particular attention paid to the origins of narrative autobiography as a genre.  Following the discussion of Hutchinson, Nick Brott presented background information on witchcraft and British and American anxieties concerning its appearance, focusing especially on the Salem/Essex County incident of 1692.  After Nick's presentation, Sheridan Steelman directed the class's attention to the historical context, with particular attention to the medieval period, of beliefs about witchcraft.

After the presentations, a general discussion of Cotton Mather's Wonders of the Invisible World ensued.  The book's structure, its cobbling of various genres, and concern with spectral evidences were all examined; class ended with a look at the book's modernity or, as one participant phrased it, its "timelessness."

One issue we did not, unfortunately, have time to take up is the volatile mix of race, gender, age, and class boundaries in the Essex County witchcraft incident and Mather's rendering of it in Wonders.  The secondary reading for 11/16 highlighted the key role the northern New England Indian wars played in the 1692 witchcraft crisis, and Tituba is of special interest because her race remains a compelling mystery.  Probably she was a Native American, but popular tradition has morphed her into a slave of African descent.  Other scholarship, meanwhile, has spotlighted gender as a key component (The vast majority of the accused were women; according to one web site, 141 women and 44 men were accused, 52 women and 7 men were tried, and 14 women and 5 men were hanged.  Giles Corey was pressed to death for refusing to plead guilty or not guilty.)  Women over 40 made up most of the accused, and women over 60 were particularly vulnerable.  Accusations eventually targeted noteworthy persons such as John Alden (son of John and Priscilla) and Governor Phips's wife, and accusations against the latter contributed to ending the trials.  This stew of race, class, gender, and age seems also a particularly modern preoccupation.

Recap of 11/2 Class

Lingua quo tendis ("Tongue, where are you heading?"), Crispijn van de Passe, 1611.

We began with a brief discussion of Anne Bradstreet's "A Dialogue between Old England and New," noting the poem's generic complexity and the implications of its central image, a parent-child relationship.

Next, Jonathan gave a presentation detailing Bunyan's theology, his sources for The Pilgrim's Progress, the book's possible autobiographical origins (include Bunyan's own trial), and it's influence on nineteenth-century British and American literature. He showed us several fascinating illustrations for The Pilgrim's Progress and compared these with, among others, the illustrations from Frank L. Baum's classic children's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz  (1900).

The class then discussed The Pilgrim's Progress, first comparing its use of allegory with that in Milton's Paradise Lost, and then analyzing Bunyan's various narrative techniques, including the dream frame and the strategy of repeated retelling. We considered ways in which the book does and does not function as a proto-novel.

Finally, the class looked at some of Edward Taylor's Preparatory Meditations, noting especially their use of garden imagery and discussing Taylor's possible reasons for not publishing these poems.

One final note on a topic we didn't have time to discuss in class: Taylor was influenced by the tradition of the emblem, a minor literary kind that amalgamated picture, motto, and poem. (An example of an emblem is above.) In Protestant Poetics and the Seventeenth-Century Religious Lyric (1979) Barbara Lewalski argues that Taylor's "Canticles" series, of which we read several poems, derives its garden imagery from seventeenth-century emblems.

Class Recap 10/26

We began Wednesday's session with Angela's helpful discussion of poets Edward Taylor, Michael Wigglesworth, and Anne Bradstreet and their complex relationship to public and private poetry. 

Afterward, we took up Edward Taylor's God's Determinations Touching His Elect, examining first the historical context out of which it and Michael Wigglesworth's Day of Doom (1662) came before turning to comparisons with Milton's Paradise Lost.  Creation, the portrait of Satan, and Eve's role all fell under consideration.  We further discussed Taylor's metaphysical aesthetic as well as his shift to the psychology of the Saint and away from Milton's emphasis on the psychology of Satan.

Hans Memling, Last Judgement, 1466-1473

After the break, we looked at Andrew Marvell's poetic technique in "Bermudas" before turning to Wigglesworth's seventeenth-century bestseller.  We continued to interrogate poetic aesthetics with Day of Doom, considering the use of hymnal meter, the plain style, and epic devices.  Wigglesworth's treatment of the saints and sinners was also discussed, including the sinners' varying defenses before Christ.  It is noteworthy in Wigglesworth that each time he begins enumerating sinful behavior he mentions hypocrisy first (see stanzas 27 and 68).  Though we did not elaborate on this in class, the hierarchy of sin within Wigglesworth's epic is significant, particularly his emphasis on hypocrisy.  If the intention of the New England Puritans was to establish a godly community of the elect, detection of both the saintly and the reprobate was tremendously important.  While Puritans did not have access to the invisible church (known only to God), they did have control over the visible church, and policing falsity regarding one's status an a member of the elect was key.  We have already seen this in the conversion narratives recorded by Thomas Shepard.  That the hypocrites come first in Wigglesworth's register signals the dire threat they posed to the visible church (just as the unbaptized infants' position near the end indicates that theirs is the least of offenses).

We closed with a brief mention of Wigglesworth's private diary.  A nifty little book, it reveals much about not just the poet's own psychology but Puritan attitudes toward sexuality, introspection, and the spiritual anxieties they faced on a daily basis.

In addition to Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, you will be reading a small selection (less than a dozen out of over 200) of Taylor's Prepatory Meditations, a poetic project he began early in his ministry.  These poems were composed prior to Taylor's monthly administering of communion.  What qualities do Taylor's poems share with Bunyan's text?  How do the Meditations garner Taylor his "title" as the "American Metaphysical"?  How do these poems compare to those composing God's Determinations?

Class Recap 10/19

This is a cake I made for Milton's quatercentenary, in December 2009.

 

We began Wednesday's class with Jennifer's presentation on gender in Paradise Lost. Jennifer analyzed several important passages in the poem that outline a hiearchy of gender. We followed the presentation with a more general discussion of Milton's representation of gender, including a consideration of Adam and Eve's conversations with each other in Books 9-10.

Next, the class discussed John Rogers' "Political Science of Paradise Lost" (assigned for last week), comparing it with the earlier reading from J. Martin Evans. The latter placed PL within the discourse of colonialism; the former, within a scientific discourse. This conversation extended to a more general one about Milton and science. Finally, we looked at the piece by Jameela Lares on the homiletics of Books 11-12, emphasizing the important role of sermon theory, and academic preparation generally, for even nonconformist preachers of the seventeenth century. (Along the way we also had a very interesting side conversation about the literary merits of Books 11-12, and talked about other ways Milton could have ended his epic.)

From there we moved on to consider John Winthrop's sermon A Model of Christian Charity, noting that its emphasis on economic relations had very practical implications for colonists bound for the New World.

After the break, I showed the class a photo of the Sexual Harassment Cake, found on the blog Cake Wrecks. (I highly recommend this hilarious blog, by the way.) I compared Paradise Lost with this cake, noting (with reference to Lares' comments about disobedience and corrective sermons) the difficulty of  forbidding something verbally while simultaneously presenting that very thing to the visual imagination as an example.

At the end of class we read PL 12.624-49 (the ending), considering the imagery of mists and comets as a lingering Satanic presence. I suggested that the poem's closing images, while partly ones of loss, also represent the beginning of human history.