1. A Comparison of Puritanism and The Age of enlightenment
And Romanticism

2. Religious Beliefs
Puritanism - Total Depravity - through Adam and Eve's fall, every person is born sinful - Original Sin
Enlightenment - Faith in natural goodness - a human is born without taint or sin; tabula rasa - blank slate.
Romanticism - Nature as revelation of God to the individual, rise of Deism (Unitarianism)

3. Common themes
Puritanism – religious and political idealism, pragmaticism, manifest destiny to be “The City Upon the Hill”
Enlightenment – faith in natural goodness, universal benevolence, & sovereignty of reason
Romanticism – liberty, fraternity, & equality, intellectual and spiritual revolution, alienation, guilt, pride,
initiation

4. Function of writers
Puritanism – to glorify God, to make Him more relevant to the universe
Enlightenment – a searching inquiry into all aspects of the world esp, the classics, science, nature, & the self (self = duty to succeed & personal religion)
Romanticism – to appeal to the imagination & emotions, to promote optimism, geniality, & individualism

5. Style of writing
Puritanism – protestant, (protest) against ornateness and purposelessness
Enlightenment – sovereignty of reason, cogito ergo sum-“I think, therefore, I am,” to perfect humans, to illustrate man’s natural goodness
Romanticism – subjectivity in form and meaning, stress on imagination and emotion, optimist and geniality