{"id":255,"date":"2025-08-23T14:56:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-23T14:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/?page_id=255"},"modified":"2025-09-01T13:34:47","modified_gmt":"2025-09-01T13:34:47","slug":"puritanism","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/course-syllabus\/puritanism\/","title":{"rendered":"Puritanism"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_256\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-256\" style=\"width: 640px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/files\/2025\/08\/Thanksgiving-cartoon-scaled.avif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-256 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/files\/2025\/08\/Thanksgiving-cartoon-1024x696.avif\" alt=\"Thanksgiving cartoon\" width=\"640\" height=\"435\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/files\/2025\/08\/Thanksgiving-cartoon-1024x696.avif 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/files\/2025\/08\/Thanksgiving-cartoon-300x204.avif 300w, https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/files\/2025\/08\/Thanksgiving-cartoon-768x522.avif 768w, https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/files\/2025\/08\/Thanksgiving-cartoon-1536x1044.avif 1536w, https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/files\/2025\/08\/Thanksgiving-cartoon-2048x1392.avif 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-256\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cartoon depicting the first Thanksgiving, 1621 (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.inquirer.com\/opinion\/cartoons\/thanksgiving-disease-covid--20201126.html\">Philadelphia Inquirer<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>TEXT:\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/texts\/anne-bradstreet-the-author-to-her-book-1666\/\">Bradstreet, The Author to Her Book (1666)<\/a><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>24 lines of <strong>heroic couplets<\/strong> (rhyming) in <strong>iambic pentameter<\/strong> (five metrical feet, each with an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable)<\/li>\n<li>Published posthumously (after death) in 1678<\/li>\n<li>Originally written while Bradstreet was living in North Andover, Massachusetts, during the same year when the family residence burned down (also the subject of a well known poem).\u00a0 At that time, she was in her mid-fifties, a mother of eight children with the oldest in his twenties<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>CONTEXT:\u00a0 Puritans and Their Covenant<\/h3>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Puritans were stereotyped by their enemies as dour killjoys, and the exaggeration has endured. It is certainly true that the Puritans\u2019 disdain for excess and opposition to many holidays popular in Europe (including Christmas, which, as Puritans never tired of reminding everyone, the Bible never told anyone to celebrate) lent themselves to caricature. But Puritans understood themselves as advocating a reasonable middle path in a corrupt world. It would never occur to a Puritan, for example, to abstain from alcohol or sex.&#8221; &#8212;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/text\/02-colliding-cultures\/#VI_New_England\">American Yawp, 2: VI<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<ul>\n<li>1621 \/\/ First &#8220;Thanksgiving&#8221; in Plymouth<\/li>\n<li>1630 \/\/ <a href=\"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/colliding-cultures\/john-winthrop-dreams-of-a-city-on-a-hill-1630\/\"><em>Arbella<\/em>, John Winthrop and the &#8220;City Upon A Hill&#8221;<\/a><\/li>\n<li>1638 \/\/ Anne Hutchinson banished from Massachusetts Bay<\/li>\n<li>1649 \/\/ Charles I beheaded during English Civil War<\/li>\n<li>1675-78 \/\/ King Philip&#8217;s War<\/li>\n<li>1684 \/\/ Massachusetts Bay charter revoked<\/li>\n<li>1692 \/\/ Salem Witch trials begin<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>TWO TERMS TO REMEMBER<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>covenant<\/strong> = Puritan theological doctrine concerning man&#8217;s binding agreements for salvation and the debate it created among these Calvinist Protestants\u00a0 between adherents of the &#8220;covenant of grace&#8221; versus the &#8220;covenant of works&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><strong>coverture\u00a0<\/strong>= English common law doctrine which defined married women as dependents of their husbands, like children<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><strong>SUBTEXT:\u00a0 Understanding Anne Bradstreet<\/strong><\/h3>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;we each have to figure out how to create a path to our work.&#8221; &#8211;Edward Hirsch, The Heart of American Poetry, xiii<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I suspect that Bradstreet&#8217;s preamble [to &#8220;The Author to Her Book&#8221;] which is quirky and funny, shows genuine ambivalence about her publication [of\u00a0<em>The Tenth Muse<\/em>], which was badly printed and filled with errors.\u00a0 It&#8217;s hard to tell, though, because she was expert at feigned modesty.&#8221; &#8211;Edward Hirsch,\u00a0<em>The Heart of American Poetry,\u00a0<\/em>10<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It is not farfetched to suggest that in instructing her manuscript not to go abroad she is also making a statement about American poetry finding its place in the New rather than the Old World.&#8221; &#8211;Hirsch, 12<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I continue to marvel at the cunning and courageous poetic of this singular Puritan woman, who internalized a harsh religious creed and observed the strict proprieties of her society, and yet opened the pantry door for others to barge in, for the wild, divergent, emerging poetry of the New World.&#8221; &#8211;Hirsch, 13<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h3>Additional Resources<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Philip Deloria, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/magazine\/2019\/11\/25\/the-invention-of-thanksgiving\">&#8220;The Invention of Thanksgiving,&#8221;<\/a>\u00a0<em>New Yorker,\u00a0<\/em>November 18, 2019<\/li>\n<li>Dean Grodzins, <a href=\"https:\/\/divinity.uchicago.edu\/sightings\/articles\/thanksgiving-day-remember-fast-day-dean-grodzins\">&#8220;On Thanksgiving Day, Remember Fast Day,&#8221;<\/a> 2014)<\/li>\n<li>Hollywood &amp; History:\u00a0 &#8220;The Crucible&#8221; (1996) and the origins of &#8220;witch hunt&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/iUIAxTxrnCc?si=uWlxlzgKZFlaTrhG\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>METHODS CENTER:\u00a0 Close Reading<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Learn the mantra:\u00a0 text, context, subtext<\/li>\n<li>How do you read?<\/li>\n<li>Most students are linear readers by habit but another important type of reading strategy is often described as <a href=\"https:\/\/purl.stanford.edu\/yk133ht8603\">lateral reading<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-118pinsker\/files\/2010\/09\/HANDOUT-How-to-READ-Like-a-Historian-1.pdf\">See the handout on reading strategies at the Methods Center<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; TEXT:\u00a0 Bradstreet, The Author to Her Book (1666) 24 lines of heroic couplets (rhyming) in iambic pentameter (five metrical feet, each with an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable) Published posthumously (after death) in 1678 Originally written while Bradstreet was living in North [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":373,"featured_media":0,"parent":37,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-255","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/373"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":529,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/255\/revisions\/529"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/37"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}