美国文学简史电子书 常耀信.docVIP

CHAPTER 1 Colonial America American Puritanism The settlement of the North American continent by the English began in the early part of the seventeenth century. The first settlers who became the founding fathers of the American nation were quite a few of them Puritans. They came to America out of various reasons, but it should be remembered that they were a group of serious, religious people, advocating highly religious and moral principles. They carried with them to America a code of values, a philosophy of life, and a point of view, which, in time, took root in the New World and became what is popularly known as American 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 Americans breathe, that we may state with a degree of safety that, without some understanding of Puritanism, there can be no real understanding of American culture and literature. Although the English government saw the colonization of the North American continent as a means of alleviating its own problems, a large number of the settlers themselves left home in the first years of the seventeenth century in earnest quest of an ideal of their own. It is true that they wished to escape religious persecution - and the English government regarded its American colony as an ideal dumping ground for the undesirables, but they were also determined to find a place where they could worship in the way they thought true Christians should. When they arrived and saw the virgin forests, the virgin land, and the vast expanse of wilderness that stretched miles around before them, they became aware that God must have sent them there for a definite purpose and that, as Gods chosen people, they were meant to reestablish a commonwealth based on the teachings