1. The Puritans

2. Overview
16th Century
More extreme Protestants within the church of England
Wanted to “purify” their national church by eliminating every shred of Catholic influence
17th Century
Emigrated to the new world
Founded a holy commonwealth
Remained dominant in New England into the 19th century

3. 4 Convictions Direct personal religious experience Sincere moral code
Personal salvation was entirely from God
The Bible provided the indispensible guide to life
Church should reflect the express teaching of scripture
Society was one unified whole
Encouraged:
Direct personal religious experience
Sincere moral code
Simple worship services
Christianity should be taken as the focus of human existence

4. American Puritanism
17th Century Puritan groups separated from the church (among these were the Pilgrims who in 1620 founded Plymouth Colony)
10 years later= first large Puritan migration
Richard Mather and John Cotton- Massachusetts Bay
Mainstream Calvanistic thought: Stressed personal religious experiences as “God’s elect”

5. Strict and Rigid Puritan Code

6. Basic Tenets of Puritan Beliefs
Grace is a gift from a kind and loving God—BUT God “saves” only those he wishes
Human beings are not worthy of receiving God’s salvation because of our depraved (immoral, wicked) natures
Repentance, like personal salvation, depended solely on the Grace of God
Limited atonement: only a select few will receive salvation
Expected to work hard and repress emotions
No tolerance for individual difference
All sins should be punished
Followers of Satan were witches (social outcasts)

7. Salem Witch Trials

8. Facts on Salem Trials
Over 150 people (78% women) were accused of witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts, 1692.
19 people were hanged (14 women and 5 men), and one man was pressed to death because he would not say whether he was guilty or innocent.
Nobody was burned at Salem, but they did burn “witches” in Europe.
Evidence used against suspected witches to prove they were on the devil’s side: accused of harming animals, making people sick, pinching people as they slept, unladylike behavior (yelling at their husbands in public).

9. Nathaniel Hawthorn
Hawthorn’s great-great Grandfather was among the judges of Salem Witch Trials
Hawthorn was not a Puritan (they were mostly gone by his time)!!!
He looked with distaste upon “the whole dismal severity of the Puritan code of law”.
Transcendental reformer
He calls his stories “allegories of the heart”

10. American Romanticism
The first full-fledged literary movement that developed in the United States
It was made up of a group of authors who wrote and published between about 1820 and 1860, when the U.S. was still finding its feet as a new nation
Definitely and defiantly American—authors struggled to figure out what “American” could possibly mean, distinguish themselves from Britain
Romantic authors included Hawthorne, Emerson, Thoreau, Melville, and Whitman

11. Characteristics of Romanticism
Values feeling and intuition over reason
Values imagination over reality
Civilization is bad. Nature is good.
Individual freedom is important
Nature is the way to find God.
Progress is bad and usually leads to depravity.

12. Dark Romanticism A sub-genre of Romanticism
Notably less optimistic about mankind, nature, and divinity
In particular, sees nature as a more sinister force
Dark Romantics present individuals as prone to sin and self destruction, not as inherently possessing divinity and wisdom.
The natural world is dark, decaying, and mysterious; when it does reveal truth to man, its revelations are evil and hellish.
Dark Romanticism frequently show individuals failing in their attempts to make changes for the better.

13. “Young Goodman Brown”
We’ll start our unit studying four short stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne
While you read “Young Goodman Brown,” you will track some of the important symbols and motifs
Bring your completed symbolism charts to class on Wednesday as a way to discuss the story together
HW: Read “YGB” and complete symbolism tracking worksheet