Chapter One. The Lit of Colonial and Revolution Period.pptVIP

Chapter One The Literature of Colonial America Reason and Revolution Ⅰ. Native American literature * Native American literature was rich and established before 1620. * Legends, folktales, and other forms of literature were preserved in oral form. * Much of this literature disappeared with the destruc- tion of Native American cultures by the whites. * Among the richest set of Native American stories that survive are creation myths, descriptions of the beginnings of the universe and the world and of the origin of humankind. II. Calvinism It refers to the Christian theology of the French church reformer John Calvin. Its central tenets include: belief in the absolute sovereignty of God the doctrine of justification by faith alone; belief in the Bible as the unique rule for the life of faith human beings were not capable of free will after the Fall of Adam predestination and limited atonement total depravity conversion as central to Puritan spirituality. thrift, industry, and hard work are forms of moral virtue and business success is an evidence of Gods grace. Ⅲ . Puritanism A dominant factor in American life, American Puritanism was one of the most enduring shaping influences in American thought and American literature. It has become, to some extent, so much a state of mind, rather than a set of tenets, so much a part of the national cultural atmosphere that the American breathes, that we may state with a degree of safety that, without some understanding of Puritanism, there can be no real understanding of America and its literature. -----Chang Yaoxin Puritanism is a movement arising within the Church of England in the latter part of the 16th century that sought to purify, or reform church and establish a middle course between Roman Catholicism and the ideas of the Protestant reformers. It had a continuous life within the church until the Stuart Restoration (1660). Puritanism reached N