美国文学forum46_f_24.docVIP

Chapter 1 Colonial Period Background: Puritanism features of Puritanism Predestination: God decided everything before things occurred. Original sin: Human beings were born to be evil, and this original sin can be passed down from generation to generation. Total depravity Limited atonement: Only the “elect” can be saved. Influence A group of good qualities – hard work, thrift, piety, sobriety (serious and thoughtful) influenced American literature. It led to the everlasting myth. All literature is based on a myth – garden of Eden. Symbolism: the American puritan’s metaphorical mode of perception was chiefly instrumental in calling into being a literary symbolism which is distinctly American. With regard to their writing, the style is fresh, simple and direct; the rhetoric is plain and honest, not without a touch of nobility often traceable to the direct influence of the Bible. 3 Puritan Thoughts: (The Mayflower voyage 1620) The English immigrants who settled on America’s northern seacoast, appropriately called New England, came in order to practice their religion freely. They were either Englishmen who wanted to reform the Church of England or people who wanted to have an entirely new church. These two groups combined, especially in what became Massachusetts, came to be known as “Puritans”, so named after those who wished to “purify” the church of England. Puritans wanted to make pure their religious beliefs and practices. The Puritan was a “would-be purifier” who thought himself holier or better than others. The Puritans wished to restore simplicity to church services and the authority of the Bible to theology. They felt that the Church of England was too close to the Church of Rome in doctrine, form of worship, and organization of authority. Another point of controversy was that the Church of England was the established church, that is, the official church of the state, and the most extreme Puritans, among them the Plymouth Plantation group, felt that the influenc