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.

The Difficulty of Representing "Just Say No"

In class on Wednesday the 19th, we discussed the aesthetic challenge Milton faced regarding how to portray a "negative," having to write about Original Sin while simultaneously characterizing Eve and Adam's action as a grievous mistake.  In other words, how does an author portray sin without representing it enticingly?  This was a key question confronting authors of the early republic whose genre of choice was the seduction novel. 

An image from one of the many editions of Charlotte Temple

Two of the key bestsellers of the era were Susanna Haswell Rowson's Charlotte Temple (1794) and Hannah Webster Foster's The Coquette (1797).  Both novels told essentially identical stories (spoiler alert!):  a virginal woman is seduced by a dashing army officer, fetched away from her friends and family, impregnated, and abandoned by her lover, eventually dying in childbirth, repenting her waywardness.  Both authors were writing in the tradition of Samuel Richardson's Clarissa (1748), one of the most popular novels of the 18th century on both sides of the ocean.

The risk of the genre, acknowledged by advocates and critics alike, was the possibility that a young woman would sympathize so strongly with the heroines that she would see their sins not as horrid but as understandable, that the power of representation would dilute (or worse, reverse!) the intended message.  Authors often tried to undermine such anxieties by claiming their novel was "a tale of truth" (Charlotte) or "founded on fact" (Coquette).  Unlike Paradise Lost, the sinful actions in these novels take place offstage, and readers realize the deed has occurred when the heroine runs away with her lover (Charlotte) or is found weeping after a rendezvous (Coquette).  Although the authors do not figuratively draw back the bed curtains for their readers to observe the act of sinning, the novels' dashing officers are still alluring characters, and the life of adventure they offer remains appealing.  (Another way to confront the challenge of representing seduction and maintain the moral is to relegate seduction to a subplot and only portray the consequences of that seduction for the primary characters, as Sukey Vickery does in Emily Hamilton [1803].   Even this strategy of consequences, however, did not save The Scarlet Letter (1850) from being called a "dirty book" by one reviewer.)

Despite its popularity, the novel itself was a suspect genre.  According to one critic, fiction takes "Every opportunity . . . to frame an apology for suicide, adultery, prostitution, and the indulgence of every propensity for which a corrupt heart can plead an inclination."  Another commentator noted in "Novel Reading, a Cause of Female Depravity" that "Without the poison instilled [by novels] into the blood, females in ordinary life would never have been so much the slaves of vice . . . . It is no uncommon thing for a young lady who has attended her dearest friend to the altar, a few months after a marriage which, perhaps, but for her, had been a happy one, to fix her affections on her friend's husband, and by artful blandishments allure him to herself.  Be not staggered, moral reader, at the recital!  Such serpents are really in existence . . . . "  (Both quotes from Cathy N. Davidson's Revolution and the Word [1986].)

Such are the trials that try authors' souls.

Class Recap 10/12

"Raphael Warns Adam and Eve," William Blake, 1807.

We began with a presentation from Katlin, who explained a critical controversy, focusing on William Empson's Milton's God and Dennis Danielson's Milton's Good Good, about the nature of Milton's God. This led to a discussion about present-day Christian beliefs about the fall and the nature of God and the afterlife. 

Next, Briana discussed Milton's epistolary tract Of Education, explaining key elements of Milton's philosophy of education. She divided the class into groups and asked each group to look at a specific passage from Of Education and find passages in Paradise Lost that expressed similar themes and images. An important idea to come out of this discussion was Raphael's role as a teacher.

The class then continued to discuss Raphael's various roles: as teacher, messenger, minister, therapist, friend, and substitute narrator. We considered the special challenge that both Raphael and Milton have: representing "to human sense th' invisible exploits / Of warring spirits" (5.565-66).

Students had selected, as requested, passages in which they saw a tension between spiritual instruction and aesthetic pleasure. We only had time to focus on one of these, 5.540-5.444, suggested by Jason. The class did a wonderful close reading/poetic analysis here, seeing how the verse embodies the emotional intensity of Raphael's teaching/warning to Adam in that moment. Ben also pointed out that the part of the beauty of the passage is in the way it brings closure to a longer speech.

Other passages we didn't have time to talk about:

Two passages were suggested that had to do with representational issues we had discussed earlier in the class period; the challenge to Raphael (and Milton) is both to instruct and to work with the human imagination. 6.909-912 (suggested by Nick) and 6.296-303 (Christy) exemplify this well.

Several students pointed to passages where some sort of doctrine or scientific information is incorporated into the action or dialogue:  5.435-440 (Josh), 6.723-732 (Jonathan), 4.877-884 (Brandon), and 6.330-333, 344-353 (Cody). This last example is interesting in that Raphael/Milton’s explanation of angelic injury interrupts the battle scene just as the wound itself interrupts Satan.
Finally, quite a few students identified passages that contained a complex intertwining of aesthetics and instruction: 4.159-171 (from Jennifer - we had a little time to discuss this one in class, remarking on the important role of both sensory imagery and simile in the passage); 5.275-279 (Ben, who noted the combination of pagan and Christian imagery; also notable about this passage is its status as a prayer and song); 7.449-504 (Jen, who pointed out that the passage combines instruction and poetic Biblical language, combining Genesis with the Song of Solomon); 8.79-99 (Sheridan); 8.500-520 (Karin; it's striking how many of these involve descriptions of nature - this one also refers to other kinds of pleasure besides aesthetic); 8.167-178 (Angela - this one is interesting in that it could be read as telling Adam to appreciate rather than to inquiry intellectually); and 9.1114-1118 (Jessica).

"A Woman of Ready Wit and Bold Spirit"

Anne Hutchinson, Boston, State House Grounds

Before the class moves too far away from the 1630s and 1640s, it is worth saying a few words about Anne Marbury Hutchinson (1591-1643) and the Antinomian Crisis (1636-1638) in Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Hutchinson was born in England, the daughter of an Anglican minister with strong Puritan leanings who was imprisoned and later placed under house arrest by the authorities.  He educated his daughter well beyond what the era offered other women.  After her marriage to William Hutchinson, she fell under the spell of a dynamic minister residing in nearby Boston, Lincolnshire, England.  Regularly, the Hutchinsons travelled over twenty miles to hear John Cotton preach each Sunday, and they deeply mourned his 1633 forced departure for New England.  Having given birth to her fourteenth child, Hutchinson and her family followed Cotton to the Bay Colony in 1634.

Having settled into her new home, Hutchinson resumed acting as midwife and spiritual advisor to local women.  Her activities eventually morphed into hosting religious gatherings at her home, collecting some 70 devoted followers.  At these events, she discussed theological matters, eventually reaching the conclusion that the concept of sanctification---the visible evidence that one might be of the elect---was a false doctrine and that ministers who preached it were leading saints astray in their religious devotions.  Among her devotees were her brother-in-law minister John Wheelwright (1592-1679) and Governor Henry Vane (1613-1662).  As Philip H. Round has argued, Hutchinson might have been drawing on an English tradition as a "prophetic woman," a custom that made her behavior aberrant in New England.

Tensions grew in the colony, reaching a tipping point in August, 1637, when a synod was convened and Hutchinson was brought before the authorities.  Among those who questioned her during her church and her civil trials were John Winthrop, who had just defeated Vane for the governorship; Thomas Dudley, Deputy Governor and Anne Bradstreet's father; John Eliot, apostle to the Indians; John Cotton, minister at Boston; Thomas Shepard, minister at Cambridge; Thomas Weld, minister at Roxbury; and Hugh Peters, minister at Salem.  These were the big intellectual guns of the Bay Colony, and as the transcripts make clear, Anne Hutchinson could not just hold her own during the back and forth over theological matters, she could actually talk them into silence.   Cotton himself came under scrutiny from his brethren, and he eventually turned on Hutchinson during the trial.

Unfortunately, perhaps weary from the questioning, Hutchinson slipped up:

Hutchinson: . . . I bless the Lord, he hath let me see which was the clear ministry and which the wrong.  Since that time I confess I have been more choice and he hath let me to distinguish between the voice of my beloved and the voice of Moses, the voice of John the Baptist and the voice of the antichrist, for all those voices are spoken of in scripture.  Now if you do condemn me for speaking what in my conscience I know to be truth I must commit myself unto the Lord.
Mr. Nowell: How do you know that that was the spirit?
Hutchinson: How did Abraham know that it was God that bid him offer his son, being a breach of the sixth commandment?
Dep. Gov. Dudley: By an immediate voice.
Hutchinson: So to me by an immediate revelation.
Dudley: How!  an immediate revelation.
Hutchinson: by the voice of his own spirit to my soul.  I will give you another scripture, Jeremiah 46:27-28---out of which the Lord showed me what he would do for me and the rest of his servants. . . .

This spirit also forewarned Hutchinson that after she migrated to Massachusetts Bay she would be persecuted.  As far as the Puritans were concerned, direct revelation from God ended with Christ's apostles, so to embrace, as she did, an "immediate revelation" exposed her to charges of heresy.  As Winthrop recorded in his journal, though her errors were "clearly confuted, but yet she held her own." Hutchinson was admonished, then excommunicated, then banished from the Bay Colony.  Many of her followers examined and either returned to the fold or followed Hutchinson into exile.

The Antinomian Controversy spread through the colony, dividing towns, churches, even families.  It forced the Congregationalists to recognize that limits must be placed on individual belief, lest the colony disintegrate into factions.  As tensions rose, ordinances were passed ordering the seizure of any guns owned by Hutchinson's followers, the narrowly elected Governor Winthrop found himself denied an honor guard, and the Hutchinsonians apparently resisted waging the Pequot War.

Split Rock, Bronx, New York, near where the Hutchinsons died

Much to the authorities' dismay, after her banishment Hutchinson found refuge in the lately established colony of Rhode Island, founded by another Bay Colony banishee, Roger Williams.  There, Anne Hutchinson "was delivered of a monstrous birth," the remains of which were examined as evidence of her errors.  (None of the authorities seem to have taken notice that she was 47 years old at the time of her miscarriage.)  Governor Winthrop reports in his diary that an earthquake struck Rhode Island, and the Hutchinsonians, having been given over to "strange delusions," "boasted" that "the Holy Ghost did shake it [the house] in coming down upon them, as He did upon the apostles."  By 1643, Hutchinson was living with the Dutch in New Amsterdam (i.e., New York), where she and a number of family members (with the exception of the one daughter pictured with her above) were slaughtered by Indians.  Noting the event in his journal, Winthrop comments that "These people had cast off ordinances and churches, and now at last their own people. . . ."  One might consider the biblical implications of this statement.
Hutchinson's descendants include three presidents (FDR and the two Bushes), Lincoln senate opponent Stephen Douglas, Mitt Romney, two Supreme Court Justices, author Oliver Wendell Holmes, historian Mary Beth Norton, and royal governor during the American Revolution, Thomas Hutchinson.  In 1987, Governor Michael Dukakis officially revoked Governor Winthrop's order of banishment.

Three trial transcripts survive from the Antinomian Crisis; they and other documents have been collected by historian David D. Hall in The Antinomian Controversy, 1636-1638: A Documentary History (2nd edition, 1990).  A detailed history of the crisis is Michel P. Winship's Making Heretics : Militant Protestantism and Free Grace in Massachusetts, 1636-1641 (2002).  Hutchinson never published her beliefs, and thus her words were recorded by her adversaries and come down to us through the lens of their vision.  In spite of her persecutors' view of her, the transcripts reveal Hutchinson to have been a feisty woman with a deep biblical knowledge of her faith.

The Doctrine of the Ferment

The assigned chapter by John Rogers on the political science of Paradise Lost may need a little background. Rogers refers to several of Milton's prose works:

De Doctrina Christiana ["On Christian Doctrine"]: This is a theological treatise in Latin, probably written in the 1650s, as Rogers indicates. The manuscript was discovered only in the 19th century. This work is of great interest in that it expresses some heretical ideas not obviously present in Paradise Lost. Among these is the doctrine of monist materialism, the idea that the material universe is suffused with God's goodness and ultimately not separate from the divine. This idea is described by Rogers on 112-113.

The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates: This is a 1649 tract by Milton defending the right of the people to execute a king.

Defensio pro Populo Anglicano ["Defense of the English People"]: Milton wrote this in 1651 at the request of the Cromwell government; it defends the revolution and the regicide against published attacks by the French scholar Claudius Salmasius.

The Readie & Easie Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth: Published in 1660 with the Restoration seeming inevitable, this was Milton's last attempt to persuade his countrymen to keep a republican government rather than a monarchy.

Rogers' thesis is that the "vitalist moment" - a brief period in the mid-seventeenth-century when some natural philosophers (what we now call scientists) held  that matter was not lifeless and mechanistic, but that body and soul were inseparable and, in the extreme formulation, that "all material substance was infused with the power of reason and self-motion" (1) - attracted some on the Puritan left as an analogy for revolutionary politics. In the chapter you are reading, he argues that Milton's apparent onetime interest in vitalism reappears in Paradise Lost as an alternative political image of the cosmos.

The Levellers (referred to on 107) were a political movement of the 1640s dedicated to popular sovereignty and equality.

The "Good Old Cause" (143) was that of Cromwell and the New Model Army - the Puritan/republican political cause.

Class Recap 10/5

We began with a presentation from Jason, who first considered the question of Milton's Puritanism, concluding that the answer depends on whether Puritanism is understood as primarily political or primarily theological. Jason then led a discussion about the representation of Satan in Paradise Lost, exploring the reasons that Satan might seem like a sympathetic or heroic figure. There followed a more general class discussion about Evans' Milton's Imperial Epic, with the class somewhat divided on the full validity of Evans' reading.

Next Ben gave a presentation on Milton's use of the Bible and on the sometimes difficult to determine line between interpretation and poetic creation. He discussed the Biblical origins of the phrase "darkness visible" (PL 1.63), Milton's Biblical analogues in Isaiah and Ezekiel for the depicting the cause of Satan's rebellion, and the book of Job as a model for the council scene in Book 2.

After the break we read aloud 3.1-55 and 4.32-113. (Keep both these passages in mind as the semester continues - we will come back to them as we read some of the American writings.) We discussed the former passage in terms of Milton's sense of narratorial involvement in Satan's story, and also considered the image of inward "planted eyes" as both a metaphorization and an internalization of vision. We talked about Satan's soliloquy as a version of Puritan self-examination. (This passage was also a topic of conversation during Jason's presentation on the portrayal of Satan.) We noted how these two passages parallel each other, both being addresses to light or the sun; Satan's "lower deeps" are a perversely reproductive version of the epic Bard's creative internal vision.

We also spent some time comparing Milton's portrayal of God with his portrayal of Satan. I suggested that an artistic problem for Milton is that God must be wholly disembodied, whereas Satan is not only embodied, but defined by his embodiment. ("Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell.") Though I didn't note this at the time, the topic of Milton's artistic challenges and motivations returns to the issues Ben raised in his presentation: how does the poet allow the Bible to speak through him and create something new at the same time?

In the final ten minutes of class we considered the historical moment in which John Cotton (1584-1652) preached his sermon "God's Promise to His Plantations" (1630), clarified the sermon's message (i.e., its thesis), and examined how Cotton's sermon contained several intellectual and theological concepts found in Paradise Lost.

A Further Word on the Puritan Conversion Narrative

In the introduction to her 1983 book The Puritan Conversion Narrative: The Beginnings of American Expression, Patricia Caldwell maps out some significant differences between British and American conversion narratives.  According to her, the experience of conversion for English converts was often conveyed in very personal terms: women and men used childbirth and deliverance literally and figuratively to explain their new-found sense of godliness.  Further, when they described their experience, it was often expressed in terms of movement down into and out of the body and selfhood.  Dreams and visions also played a frequent role (recall that in Grace Abounding Bunyan records a dream he had).  These British narratives usually contained a sense of closure, an end to striving, their authors expressing a yearning for refuge, solace, and a happy ending (i.e., heavenly assurance).

American narratives, by contrast, omitted the language of childbirth and deliverance.  In place of the movement away from the body and the self, these narratives often referred to travel and migration; converts often recalled their actual experience of migration to New England as a central moment in their experience, and they often wrote and/or spoke in terms of a movement across physical and spiritual geography.  Unlike many of the British texts, American converts often closely tied their narratives to Scripture, with biblical verses often becoming structural elements of the narrative.  Lastly, after the literal and figurative movement experienced by the congregants, a feeling of discontent, dissatisfaction, and unfulfilled spiritual desire (i.e., no heavenly assurance) remained with them.  Thus, Thomas Shepard's constant doubts about his soul's status and Anne Bradstreet's perplexity over failing to feel a sense of "constant joy in my pilgrimage and refreshing which I supposed most of the servants of God have" (from "To My Dear Children") was common to many New England Puritans.

Caldwell reminds us that a genre which might on the surface appear to be homogeneous in reality contains diverse and complex elements.

Class Recap 9/28

Old Burying Ground, Cambridge, Massachusetts---Thomas
Shepard is believed to be buried here among his congregants

Class began with a brief discussion on conference presentations, and Jessica was kind enough to share her experiences as a first time presenter at a recent conference.  This talk about professionalization was followed by Cody's informative lecture on Puritan theology and terminology.

Before turning to Thomas Shepard and John Bunyan, the class returned to Bradford's Of Plymouth Plantation (1630-1650) and Thomas Morton's New English Canaan (1637).  When considering Shepard and his congregants, we took up issues such as the genesis of the private individual, selfhood and identity, self-determination and godly dependence, and Shepard as Puritan and Christian.  John Bunyan's Grace Abounding (1666) raised questions about literary publication and manuscript culture, the rise of personal writings and issues of genre, the use of language and metaphor, and the expression of sincerity (and thus emotion in general) through the written word.

It is worth remembering that the 1994 edition of God's Plot: Puritan Spirituality in Thomas Shepard's Cambridge reprints an abridged version of the Journal and a selection of the Confessions.  Those wishing to investigate these texts in full should turn to the 1972 edition of God's Plot (for the Journal) and the original 1981 and 1991 publications of the Confessions.

"Mixtures Pernicious," Being a Further Commentary on Literary Transatlanticism

In addition to the reference to Sir Henry Vane, Thomas Shepard mentions a number of other prominent Puritans, including Nathaniel Ward (1578-1652), another transatlantic figure.  Ward was fifty-five when he emigrated to Massachusetts in 1634 after Laud deprived him of his pulpit.  He became the minister at Ipswich, the home of Simon and Anne Bradstreet (and Governor Winthrop's son, John, Jr.).  In 1641, he was tapped to draw up Massachusetts Bay's Body of Liberties, which built upon but somewhat softened an earlier draft written by John Cotton.

Ward is most famous for his second book, The Simple Cobler of Aggawam in America (1647).  Published in England, this book is often cited as the first book of American humor (albeit a dark, satirical humor remeniscent of the Marprelate Tracts).  Note that while the title page states the Cobbler is "of" Aggawam (the Indian name for Ipswich), England is nevertheless called his native country, even though Ward had been living in the New World for over a decade at the time of the book's publication.  Note, too, that while he published anonymously under the appropriately named "Theodore de la Guard," Ward was generally known as the author.  The Simple Cobler rails against the newest fashions, from women's immodest clothing to the spectre of religious toleration.   According to Ward,

"The power of all Religion and Ordinances, lies in their purity: their purity in their simplicity: then are mixtures pernicious.  I lived in a City, where a Papist preached in one Church, a Lutheran in another, a Calvinist in a third; a Lutheran one part of the day, a Calvinist the other, in the same pulpit: the Religion of that place was but motley and meagre, their affections Leopard-like. . ."

In response to this "poly-piety," he grimly remarks "I dare take upon me, to bee the Herauld of New-England so farre, as to proclaime to the world, in the name of our Colony, that all Familists, Antinomians, Anabaptists, and other Enthusiasts shall have free liberty to keepe away from us, and such as will come to be gone as fast as they can, the sooner the better. . ."

Ward moved back to England in 1647 (after the book's publication).  The book's title page shows the Simple Cobbler was printed for Stephen Bowtell, who also had printed Anne Bradstreet's The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung up in America (1650).  Ward likely had a hand in the publication of The Tenth Muse, and one of his poems appears among the introductory verses; in it he refers to Bradstreet as a "right Du Bartas girl."  (Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas was a sixteenth-century French Huguenot poet and a significant influence on Bradstreet's early poetry.)

Ward did not approve of mistreating the King (and likely rejected regicide), and despite his literary celebrity as the Simple Cobbler, he settled into the ministry of a small English parish, going to his eternal reward in 1652.



A Transatlantic Literary Connection

In Shepard's autobiography you will notice a reference to Sir Henry Vane, "too suddenly chosen governor" (67) of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Shortly after the Antinomian crisis described by Shepard, Vane returned to England where, as a member of parliament, he became an advocate of religious toleration and separation of church and state. In 1653 Milton wrote a sonnet praising Vane for, among other things, his understanding of "both spirituall powre & civill, what each meanes / What severs [i.e., limits, sets the boundaries of] each." Milton chose not to publish this poem, nor two others paying tribute to figures of the English revolution (Sir Thomas Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell), in his 1673 Poems, because of its connection to Vane, who was executed by Charles II in 1662. Milton's sonnet was published posthumously in 1694.

When the sonnet came to England in the sixteenth century, it was a love lyric. Poets like Donne and Herbert used it for devotional poems, and Milton expanded the form further by using it to write about public figures and political topics as well.

Parts of the eye, from a 1631 anatomy text.

Milton's most famous sonnet, "When I Consider How My Light Is Spent" (c. 1652), has different kind of connection to Shepard's autobiography. Shepard tells of the loss and restoration of his infant son's vision. Interpreting this event as God's work, Shepard turns it into an admonishment to the son to "remember to lift up thy eyes to heaven" and "take heed thou dost not make thy eyes windows of lust" (39). Milton, who lost his vision in his early forties, also uses blindness as the starting point for a conversation about God's plan for him in this poem. In another sonnet, he attributes the loss of his sight to having "overply'd" his eyes "in libertyes defence." (He also withheld this poem from publication, probably because of its reference to his part in the revolution.) We will see how Milton's blindness becomes symbolic in Paradise Lost also. Does interpreting literal, worldly experiences as expressions of divine will seem different in a self-consciously literary work than it does in an autobiography?

The Approach of Grace and the Challenges of Conversion

On September 28, the class will look at Thomas Shepard's autobiography and journal, his transcriptions of his parishioners "evidence" of conversion, and John Bunyan's Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (1666).  The conversion experience was a key spiritual moment for Puritans and the examination process a significant point of contention between English and New English Puritans.

Like Hooker (and John Cotton) before him, Shepard was driven from the pulpit by Archbishop Laud and his pursuit of religious conformity.  (Laud is pictured in Sir Anthony Van Dyck's 1635 portrait.)  After travelling to the New World, he succeeded Thomas Hooker as minister in Cambridge after Hooker took his congregation west to Connecticut.  Shepard played a key role in the suppression of Anne Hutchinson during the Antinomian Crisis in Massachusetts and was considered a rising star among the ministry at his untimely death at the age of 43.  Several of his sons followed their father into the ministry, including Thomas Shepard, Jr., whose "Eye-Salve" is considered a major late 17th century New England sermon.

As you read, consider how Bunyan's life experiences and eventual conversion compare with Shepard's.  Additionally, how do their spiritual experiences compare to Shepard's less educated congregants?

Class Recap 9/21

We began class on September 21 by returning to Thomas Hooker's sermon "The Danger of Desertion" (1641) examining its structure and use of typology as well as the genre of the jeremiad. Josias Nichols's "Plea of the Innocent" (1602) was considered in relation to Hooker's piece, and the class investigated Nichols's contention that the word Puritan is a misnomer for those who advocate for further reform of the English church. 

The remainder of the class was spent with William Bradford's Of Plymouth Plantation (1630-1650). After a brief discussion of the beginnings of the Reformation in England, we took up the questions of what Of Plymouth Plantation reveals about Puritanism and how Bradford's Puritanism influenced his task as historian. We also considered Bradford's aesthetic goals as he wrote his book, including his deployment of the plain style as an artistic choice as well as an economic countermeasure (via Michelle Burnham's scholarship. Class ended with an interrogation of the Other in Bradford, focusing first on his comments upon European-Native American interaction. 

On September 28, we shall briefly return to this question of the Other in Bradford to think about Otherness as not just a racial category. What Others appear in Of Plymouth Plantation? Further, how is Thomas Morton's New English Canaan in dialogue with Puritanism?

Some other questions to raise about Bradford's book which time did not allow us to investigate: What is the relationship between Part I and Part II of the history? How does the text challenge commonly held images of the Pilgrim Founders? What does one make of Bradford's inclusion of the colony's criminal activity?

The painting is by Michel Felice Corne (1752-1815), completed during the years 1803-1806 (and based upon a 1799 engraving). Since Bradford's manuscript was not recovered and printed until the mid-1850s, Corne would not have had access to his descriptions of the first landing and settlement. A simple Google search will uncover a number of similar paintings, many of them collected on the Pilgrim Hall Museum web site. Consider such representations in relation to the question above about commonly held ideas about the Pilgrims. (One might start by noticing that Corne has his Pilgrims wearing late 18th century trousers, not 17th century garb.)

Some Reflections on Puritanism and Authority

Toward the end of our discussion of Twelfth Night we began to consider whether Malvolio might represent some larger human social principle or pattern (rather than the more topical Puritan). This question returns to some issues indirectly raised in the previous class - does the fact that the term "puritan" now refers to so much beyond its original historical context suggest that puritanism itself is a recurring cultural identity?

If so, this identity may have something to do with a way of internalizing authority. Shakespeare's comedies typically leave behind or bracket a world of patriarchal social authority - the main action takes place in a youthful fantasy world in which existing social relationships are challenged and rearranged. Only at the end are the old world and the old form of authority restored, usually with some kind of transformation. You can see this pattern clearly in A Midsummer Night's Dream and As You Like It. Twelfth Night has the same structure: Olivia's father and brother, as well as Sebastian and Viola's father, are dead, and the "children" are taken to a confusing, foreign world where they have to figure out their own social relationships. (Similarly with the American colonists?) Orsino should be the reigning patriarchal authority in this world, but in the first scene he abdicates his power fairly explicitly, effectively becoming just another child at play, and does not resume it until the very end of the play.

Malvolio, then, might represent an attempt at self-discipline through repression of pleasure, in the absence of an authority to enforce the social order from the top down. Olivia seems to have turned over the ordering of her house to Malvolio after the loss of her father and brother. In a way, Malvolio is trying to internalize the lost patriarchal authority - that is how he can imagine himself as an appropriate husband for Olivia.

As we continue our reading this semester, consider how these Puritan writers relate to external or worldly authority and how they create authority internally.

Recap of 9/14 Class

We began with a brief sketch of the Puritans' status in England from the accession of Elizabeth I until the closing of the theaters in 1642. (See the chronology on the handout, available on e-learning.) The class then enumerated Stubbes's reasons for opposing the theater as outlined  in The Anatomy of Abuses, and looked at an excerpt from William Prynne's antitheatrical tract Histriomastix as well as another passage from Stubbes on stage transvestism. We also briefly examined some theatrical language in Paradise Lost, looking forward to Milton's ambivalence on this matter.

Next we looked at a version of the stage Puritan in the earliest commercially successful American comedy, The Contrast by Royall Tyler, remarking on the character's inferior social status and gullibility. From there we moved to a discussion of Twelfth Night, after viewing scenes 1.5 and the end of 5.1 in the Trevor Nunn film. Our discussion focused on ways to integrate the Malvolio/Puritan plot into the play's larger themes.

Finally we began discussing Thomas Hooker's jeremiad on the state of England shortly before his departure for New England. We will continue talking about this sermon on Wednesday, so please review the text before class.

New England, New Challenges

For the class of the 21st we'll be focusing primarily on the founding of Plymouth Colony as seen through the eyes of William Bradford, the colony's second (and often re-elected) governor. As you read, consider the following questions: How does Bradford's Puritanism inform his historicism? That is, what sort of history does Bradford produce as a result of his Puritanism? How does his Puritanism influence the content of his history?

An alternate perspective concerning events at Plymouth Colony is found in Thomas Morton's New English Canaan, published in 1637 in London. Thomas Morton was an Anglican and a staunch Royalist in his politics. He settled at Merrymount, near Quincy, Massachusetts (south of Boston but north of Plymouth). In its entirety, Morton's book is considerably shorter than Bradford's history; it is divided into three parts, and it comments upon the plant and animal life as well as the human inhabitants of New England. The brief excerpt assigned from New English Canaan involves Morton's ("Mine Host") interaction with the Puritans, especially with regard to the incident of the maypole at Merrymount. You'll want to compare Morton's narration of the incident with Bradford's. What is Morton's aim in publishing his book?

Nathaniel Hawthorne later immortalized this incident in his short story "The May-Pole of Merry Mount," published in 1835. Of Plymouth Plantation was not published until the middle of the nineteenth century, but excerpts of it did appear in New Englands Memoriall, a book published in 1669 by William Bradford's nephew, Nathaniel Morton (no relation to Thomas Morton). Hawthorne drew on Bradford's version of events when he composed his short story.

Puritan Antitheatricalism

This is Nigel Hawthorne as Malvolio in a 1996 film version of Twelfth Night directed by Trevor Nunn. As you can see from Malvolio's costume, Nunn puts the play in a Victorian setting. Scott's remark last week that by "Puritan" we often really mean "Victorian" made me realize why this setting works so well. (I like the movie - Ben Kingsley is the perfect Feste.)

For Wednesday you will read among other things a brief excerpt from Philip Stubbes' Anatomy of Abuses (1583). The book is in the form of a dialogue between Philoponus, a worldly traveler, and Spudeus, an uneducated yokel. They are talking about England (a foreign land to them) and its social customs. The critique is scathing and wide-ranging, from bear-baiting, women's fashion, gambling, drunkenness,  and "tennisse," to swearing, usury, covetousness, and maypoles. (Recall Earle's jab about maypoles in the character of the "shee-hypocrite.") You'll just read the section on stage plays - what is it that makes plays evil to Stubbes? Is it just a matter of resenting enjoyment?

If you are interested in the topic of antitheatricalism, I highly recommend The Antitheatrical Prejudice by Jonas Barish (Berkeley, 1981). The whole book is great - it goes from Plato to Ivor Winters - but there are two chapters on Puritanism. I've uploaded these to the "Recommending Readings" folder on e-learning.

Notes from 9/7

This is the list of descriptions of Puritanism that I wrote on the board as you were sharing your writing in class last Wednesday:

work ethic
manifest destiny
Christ as shepherd
reform doctrine
preaching/preachiness
simplicity/humility
piety
patriarchal God
self-righteousness
images/stereotypes from external observers
restriction of drama
inspired devotional literature
intellectual community
stoicism
fear-based judgment and exclusion 
renunciation of pleasure and fun
forcing of Christianity on others 
stereotype of unfeelingness, imposed by modern perspective
bible as source of truth
isolation, separateness
political implications of faith
judgment of social difference
attack on witchcraft
right-wing American Christianity
simultaneous isolation and worldly involvement
national identity
transhistorical phenomenon
control and repression
political radicalism
social conservatism
suppressed sexuality/emotional intensity
rhetoric in rapture
justification of anything/everything in the name of God

Puritan Writing and Genre

In the first class (9/7) we compared some very different texts: two poems by Anne Bradstreet ("To My Dear and Loving Husband" and "A Letter to her Husband") and the "character" of "A she precise Hypocrite" from John Earle's Micro-cosmographie. I want to comment further on the question of genre, which arose briefly toward the end of class. Lyric poetry was hardly invented by the Puritans, but the English religious lyric did flower in the seventeenth century in part because of the Protestant emphasis on the subjectivity of spiritual experience. (The Bradstreet poems we read seem to me to have an affinity with the poetry of Donne, who liked to combine images of erotic and spiritual love.) Later in the semester when we look at Robinson Crusoe we will consider how the inward mode of lyric (which is also the mode of Puritan spiritual autobiography) took another form in the early novel.

The Character, by contrast, has an obvious affinity with the stage, and some of Earle's portraits may have been based on Shakespearean types such as Falstaff. As we will see this week, Elizabethan plays were a venue for mocking Puritans. This was not just a form of revenge for Puritan antitheatricality. Stage characters are especially suitable for satirizing types based on external behavior and appearance. On the other hand, Shakespeare's plays, particularly Hamlet, are often seen as reflecting or even motivating the developing sense of inwardness in seventeenth-century England. In addition to the issue of Malvolio as a Puritan type, which you will read about this week, consider what Twelfth Night seems to suggest about the relationship between external appearance and inner life.