Puritans, Romantics, Realists, and

Transcendentalists

What do you think?

Puritanism

• “Puritanism. The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.” H.L. Mencken

Puritans Vs. Pilgrims

Pilgrims:• Small group of Puritans who

traveled on the Mayflower in 1620 to establish a “purified” church.

Puritans:• Settled the Massachusetts

Bay Colony about 10 years after Mayflower Pilgrims came over. Also pilgrims, as in seeking a new home because of religious convictions.

• Reconstruct not only church, but man and man’s institutions as well.

Puritanism: A New Start in America

• Persecuted in England for going against the Protestant church/government

• Religion was an individual, personal, and internal experience.

• The individual’s relationship with God was not determined by a member of the clergy or the government—it was direct

• Believed that all humans were damned (depravity), but that some were meant to be saved.

Even More Major Ideas:

• Fate was pre-determined-- one couldn’t “save” oneself, but if one led a good life, one would be able to see the “signs” that meant one were saved

• Only God’s grace was an individual’s salvation.

• Dissenters were punished severely: flogging, banishment, death (Salem Witch Trials)

• Business was an important part of community, as was education

Puritan Community/Values:

• Contract-based (like convenant with God) government—beginnings of democracy

• Valued: self-awareness, industriousness, temperance, and simplicity

Puritan “Look”

Salem Witch Trials

Salem Witch Trials: 1692

•19 men and women (5 men) convicted and hung for witchcraft•Daughter and niece of a prominent reverent fell ill. People called “witchcraft” and the witch hunt began•People accused others by “calling out names” in fits, or sickness=panic•Fear of the devil and his workings, paranoia born out of uncertainty and fear, factions in villages, competition with nearby towns, epidemic of smallpox•After less than a year, the court disbanded, all those in prison for witchcraft were pardoned and the “witch hunt” was over•Families were eventually given apologies and restitution

Puritan Writing

• Bible=model as people searched for connections between their lives and biblical events

• Each individual’s life was a spiritual journey, so recorded in diaries and historical documents describing the workings of God.

• Known for plain style of writing emphasizing clarity and avoiding complicated figures of speech

Puritan Writers

• Anne Bradstreet• William Bradford• Mary Rowlandson• Reverend

Jonathan Edwards

Anne Bradstreet•Born in England in 1612•Well-educated•Married Simon Bradstreet at 16, emigrated to Colonies in 1630•Wrote of her family, love for her husband, and love for God•Wrote privately, but brother-in-law brought some poems to England where they were published•Unusual for her to write poetry in this fashion as women were in more traditional roles in this society, but Bradstreet blended “depravity” with “hope” and didn’t challenge authority with her writing

Image Analysis: Benjamin Franklin Drawing Electricity from the Sky•What do you notice about Franklin in this painting? What is the viewer supposed to think about him? What is he doing?

•What subjects or ideas are highlighted in this painting?

•What do you notice in the background?

•How does this image contrast with the ideals of Puritanism that we discussed?

•Based on this image (and it’s title), what can you glean or infer about the time period this painting is meant to represent?

“The Age of Reason”: Rationalism

• The belief that human beings can arrive at truth by using reason

• Response to Puritanism starting around the end of the 17th century

• Influenced by European “Enlightenment” (17th and 18th centuries)

• New ideas about God: “clockmaker” who gave humans the gift of reason which allows them to discover scientific and spiritual truth

Changing Trends…

Puritans• God=actively and

mysteriously involved in the workings of the universe

• Everyone’s fate is pre-determined.

• Humans are inherently “sinners”.

• Bible contains all truth.

Rationalists• God=clockmaker of the universe• God=gave humans the gift of reason

aka the ability to think in an ordered, logical manner that allows them to discover both scientific and spiritual truth.

• Everyone has the capacity to regulate and improve his or her own life

• Deism—humanity’s goodness, God desires human happiness, basis for social welfare

• Scientific growth in order to discover “natural law”/improve lives

Franklin: Rationalist

• Henry Steele Commager: "In Franklin could be merged the virtues of Puritanism without its defects, the illumination of the Enlightenment without its heat.”

• Poor Richard’s Almanac, The Autobiography (self-made American, progress)

Famous “Tinkers,” Rationalist Writers, and Rationalist Literature:

• Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Patrick Henry

• Declaration of Independence and related writings (Iroquois Constitution, Declaration of Sentiments)

• Persuasive political writings/speeches: ethos, logos, pathos

• Instruct upon values for self-improvement (Poor Richard’s Almanac)

Declarations

American Romanticism: 1800-1860

• Developed as a reaction to Rationalism• Believed that through imagination, one can

discover truths that the rational mind couldn’t• Imagination, individual feelings, and wild

nature were > reason and logic• Poetry=highest embodiment of imagination

Romantics vs. Rationalists

• Edgar Allen Poe: “

Transcendentalism:

• Developed in the 1830s both in connection with, and in opposition to Romanticism

• Transcendentalism refers to the idea that in finding God, the universe, and the self/soul, one must transcend typical human experience in the physical world

•Marked by a “return” to nature, and trust in intuition rather than deliberate rationality and intellectualism

Transcendentalism

• Believed that self-reliance and individualism must outweigh external authority, and self-improvement leads to social improvement

• Worked to find the “permanent reality that underlies physical appearance”

• Optimism about the potential of individual lives and the universe

Transcendentalist Humor

Famous Transcendentalists

• Ralph Waldo Emerson AKA Lead Transcendentalist

• Henry David Thoreau AKA neighbor and friend to L.T.

• Margret Fuller AKA one of the first major feminist writers in the US

• Amos Bronson Alcott AKA father to Louisa May Alcott

Henry David Thoreau

• 1817-1862, born in Concord, MA.• Went to Harvard, very well-read, but many felt

he squandered his talents and connections (including Emerson)

• Influenced by Emerson• Went “into the woods” to journey inwards in a

T. fashion. Built a small cabin on Emerson’s land two miles from town. Lived there for three years, writing, thinking, and studying life

Thoreau

• Wrote “Resistance to Civil Government” while on Walden Pond after being arrested for not paying poll tax (supported Mexican-American War) because he felt it extended slavery.

• Died in 1862. Apparently asked on his deathbed if he’s made peace with God (by his aunt). His reply: “I didn’t know that we had ever quarreled.”

Walden Pond

Thoreau

“Resistance to Civil Government”

• Response to being jailed for one night for not paying poll tax

• Discusses the role of the individual in society and to his/her government

• Employs rhetoric devices of: ethos, logos, pathos

• Inspired authors and thinkers like MLK and Gandhi around passive/non-violent resistance

Ethos, Logos, Pathos

• Ethos is appeal based on the character of the speaker or moral or widely accepted values and/or standards

• Logos is appeal based on logic or reason; it uses facts, examples, and well-reasoned arguments.

• Pathos: is an appeal based on emotion and language and anecdotes that arouse strong feelings.

• http://www.rpi.edu/dept/llc/webclass/web/project1/group4/