English 231: Exam #1 Study Guide

The Literature of Colonial America and

the Literature of Reason and Revolution

Students, the following lists summarize key points about Colonial literature and Revolutionary Literature. Your exam essay question will require you to apply this information to selected pieces of literature that we have studied. The quality of your answer will in part depend on your understanding of how these principles are reflected in the literature.

Puritan Beliefs




1. God controls ALL ASPECTS of life.


2. Government was a Theocracy ruled by God's representatives on Earth.


3. Innate depravity -- all are stained by Adam's fall.

4. The "Elect" or God's chosen ones.

5. Irresistible Grace (The richest man cannot buy salvation and the worst sinner cannot resist God's grace.)

6. Predestination-- God knows in advance all those who will go to heaven and those who will go to hell.





Framework for Thinking and Writing in the Colonial Period


1. The English are destined to control this land.

2. The landscape should be subordinate to humans, i.e. cut trees and put a human stamp on nature.

3. Although the Puritans were separate, they fight for control.

4. Men should have dominance over home, church, and the pen.

5. All humans are born stained by Adam's sin. There is a strong belief in innate depravity.

6. The Puritans believe in predestination, the belief that God has already determined who will go to heaven and who to hell.

7. The Puritans believe in the "elect," those chosen by God to be his people.

8. The Puritans believe in irrestible grace. No rich man can buy his place in heaven, and even the worst crimminal cannot shun God's grace if he is of the elect.

9. Church membership should be restricted to those who have had a "conversion" experience.

10. New England was a battleground where God's people would wither succeed or fail.

11. Learning is prized and should be available to all. The Puritans started free public schools in 1647.

12. The Bible is the central text and should be available to all in the vernacular

13. Literature is OK if it contributres to a moral lesson. No dram or fiction is allowed as they are based on lies and misrepresentations.


 

A Young Nation Grows and Changes

The Age of Reason


I. Puritan Foundation Is Shaken.

A. Expanding, Diverse Population Challenges Puritan Ideals.

1. In 1670, population approximately 111,000
2. In 1690, population approximately 250,000 +
3. By 1760, population approximately 1,600,000 and the settled area had tripled.
4. By 1800, population of over five million

B. Commercial Pursuits Challenge Unity of Community.

1. Land speculation rages.
2. Fortunes were waiting to be made.
3. Non-British settlers dominant the great emigration to America.
4. The community of mutually helpful souls was fast disappearing.

C. Scientists and Philosophers Challenge 17th Century Thought

1. Scientist Sir Issac Newton explains natural law governing an orderly world.
2. Philosopher John Locke asserts the idea of government as a social contract . He debunks predestination and total depravity, replacing them with the "tabula rasa" theory.

II. The Age Of Reason / The Enlightenment /The Neoclassical Age Triumphs

A. Two assumptions held to be true by most 18th Century Americans

1. The perfectibility of man by the application of intelligence
2. The prospect of man's future progress

B. The resulting correction of institutional injustices and social reform


1. Revolution against the tyranny of monarchy
2. Prison reform
3. Charities
4. Sympathy for the Indians , the slaves, the poor, and the oppressed.

C. A change from theism--belief in the all-present God of the Puritans--to belief in a deistic God who appeared to have designed the universe according to scientific laws and then withdrawn from direct intervention in human affairs.

1. Deism -- God was the "First Cause" of Newton's Universe.
2 Human society must also operate by natural laws, and humans can thus improve.
3. A men posses a moral sense of the universal right and wrong.
4. Men could make new earthly covenants, not as with William Bradford and John Winthrop, for the glory of God, but as Thomas Jefferson argued, for man's right to happiness on earth.




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