|
Class Business:
Background Activities
Please remember to complete the Personal
Interest Survey before beginning the reading for this
week. I also strongly recommend that you review the
Study Skills section of this web site, particularly the sections
on how to prepare for class.
About Writing
Before you jump enthusiastically into the reading,
I would like you to begin thinking about your first formal writing
assignment: the Representing America Paper. If you click on that
link, you will open up a printable set of instructions for this
first paper. I would also like you to take some time to study
a few sections from a web site I will refer you to many times
this semester: The
Nuts and Bolts of College Writing. In particular, you
should look over two sections before class Wednesday:
1. An introduction to thesis statements: http://nutsandbolts.washcoll.edu/beginning.html#thesis
2. An introduction to improving clarity in your
writing (give special attention to the sections discussing active
voice (actions and verbs): http://nutsandbolts.washcoll.edu/clarity.html
On to the
Reading
Our reading for Wednesday begins
with an essay on "Representation" from Critical Terms
for Literary Study. Given our conversation about Grant Wood's
representation of America during our first meeting, taking some
time to further explore the notion of representation seems a logical
follow up on Wood and preparation for the mysteries of the Puritans.
Mitchell's essay covers quite a bit of ground, and
you need not worry about the minutae of his discussion. You should,
however, try to leave the essay with a working knowledge of the
following: 1) Mitchell' visual model for representaion, 2) the
way in which aesthetics, semiotics, and politics interact with
representation,, 3) the difference between expressionist and formalist
approaches to undersatnding representation, and 4) the meaning
of Mitchell's phrase "no representation without taxation."
The Puritan Origins of the American Self?
In the past twenty years or so, literary critics
and historians have slowly begun to admit that they have exaggerated
the role of the Puritans in American history and literature (for
a good web essay on this issue, see The
American Sense of Puritan. From the simple tale of the first
Thanksgiving spoon fed to many of us from elementary schools,
scholars have begun to explore other stories of America's earliest
colonial years. Thankfully, anthologies now include narratives
of the invasions of New Spain, Virginia, and French America as
well as attempts to reconstruct lost and destroyed native voices.
America, as we will see later in this course, turns out to have
had a pretty diverse and, dare we say it, "multicultural'
birth (if we can fairly describe the European invasion of America
as a birth!).
If all this is true, you ask, why start with the
Puritans in this course? I think it worthwhile to start with the
Puritans exactly because of the interest they have generated from
scholars searching for the origins of a mythical American self.
Long before Grant Wood offered his take on America in American
Gothic, the Puritans struggled to represent their arrival
and settlement and interpret the meanings of their own triumphs
and sufferings in America. When 19th Century American historians
and writers looked back for some resembling a national origin
story, the Puritan interest in the interpretation of human life
and history for signs of God's approval offered a nearly irresistible
opportunity. The search for validation as God's chosen people,
the commitment to self-examination, and the superficially democratic
appearing governing systems of the Puritans looked to 19th Century
American historians (and, by the way, to American studies scholars
living during the Cold War) like the seeds of a unique nation
destined for greatness.
Because so many of the texts we will read in this
course--because so much of American history itself--has questioned
and challenged the notion of an America founded (and forever grounded)
in Puritanism, some Puritan representations, both historical and
literary, offer a useful fram for our reading and a dramatic counterpoint
to the Thomas Pynchon text we jump to next.
I have organized the readings for our class on 2/13
primarily to set up our discussion of Anne Bradstreet's poems.
For that reason, I recommend moving quickly through Bradford,
Winthrop, and The New Engalnd Primer, and, to some extent, "Sinners
in the Hands of an Angry God," looking to them for a context
against with (or along with) we will discuss Bradstreet. Even
with this prioritizing principle, however, each of these contextualizing
texts offers its own riches.
William Bradford
(1570-1657):
Governor of the Plymouth colony of Separatists
(unlike the Puritans, the Pilgrims broke with the Church of
England) for over 30 years, Bradford began composing Of Plymouth
Plantaion in 1630 (the year the Puritans arrived to form the
Massachussetts Bay colony). He returned to the text in the mid
1640's and proabably completed it by 1650. Considering the 1620
arrival date for the Pilgrims, Bradford's text obviously constitutes
a reconstruction of events after the fact. Philip Gould described
Bradford's History as "not a yearly chronicle of events
but a retrospective attempt to interpret God's design for his
"saints," that exclusive group of believers pre-destined
for eternal salvation" (Heath Anthology of American Literature
246). In the context of our course, Chapter IX of Bradford's
text not only documents Gura's analysis but also exposes the
complications of representation and the blurred line between
history and literature. In an earlier version of the Pilgrim's
arrival (to which Bradford contributed) the narrative focuses
upon the fertility, richness, and fecundity of the landscape
(and the passivity of its natives). For the time, this account
made sense. Bradford and his colleagues sought expanded support
for and protection of the Pilgrim's efforts to settle Plymouth.
By 1630, however, Bradford's agenda has shifted. What purposes
does Bradford's new description serve and what does it have
to tell us about the complexities of historical and literary
representation?
John Winthrop (1588-1644)
First governor of the Massachussetts
Bay colony, Winthrop represents much of what we have traditionally
perceived as the American Puritanism. A passion for a community
inspired by (and mandated to live as a mirror of) the love of
God. When idealism could not motivate everyone to live by the
Puritan covenant, Wintrop relied on theocratic authority to
enforce the Puritan vision of a "city on a hill."
The very brief selection included in our reading, comes from
sermon Winthrop delivered on board the Arabella as the Puritans
crossed over to America from England in 1630. It lays out the
combination of religious zeal and traditional notions of authority
(a patriarchal descent from God to Governor to Husband to Wife
to Children) that historian's believe characterized early Puritan
culture. The famous call for a "city on a hill" not
only echoes the New Testament but also marks the first instance
of a claim to historical and cultural uniqueness and superiority
by an American writer.
For more on Winthrop, try these
sites:
An essay, "John Winthrop
and the Origins of American Multiculturalism," advocating
for the continued importance of reading Wintrhop:: http://www.iso.gmu.edu/~drwillia/winthrop.html
An e-text for "A Model
of Christian Charity" : http://history.hanover.edu/texts/winthmod.html
A web page for a college lit class that provides
a bibliography and useful links: http://www.gonzaga.edu/faculty/campbell/enl310/winthrop.htm
The New England
Primer (1683?)
Although we will focus
primarily on Bradstreet, I find it difficult to move past the
Primer because it provides such a riveting look at a culture
that differs so much from our own even as it so eerliy resembles
much of what and how we teach today. The Primer emerged as the
primary text for educating children in New England and it endured
for more that two centuries in various manifestations (from
1683-1830). It links religion to literacy in a way that became
the foundation for early American public education. The poem
to John Rogers, althougth a bit long, merits a read through
because it reveals much of the value system Puritans attempted
to teach their children.
For more on the Primer,
please read the intro to the text in the Heath Anthology of
American Literature: http://college.hmco.com/english/lauter/heath/4e/students/author_pages/colonial/thebaypsalmbook.html
You may also wish
to investiage an on-line version of the Primer: http://www.jesus-is-lord.com/primer.htm.
As the site address suggests, the Primer still offers a rallying
cry for Christians who believe schools should teach moral and
religious issues.
Anne Bradstreet
(1612-1672)
The first published British American poet, Anne
Bradstreet came to New England in 1630 with the Puritans led
by John Winthrop. Although she found the challenges of frontier
life in America daunting, Bradstreet raised eight children with
her husband, Simon Bradstreet (who also served as governor of
the colony), and wrote a substantial collection of poetry. Published
in 1650, after some lobbying by Bradstreet's John Woodbridge
(Bradstreet's brother-in-law), The Tenth Muse includes
Woodbridge's that the poet had not sacrificed any of her wifely
and motherly duties in order to write her poetry. This quote
from Woodbridge’s preface, taken from Pattie Cowell’s
introduction to Bradstreet in the Heath Anthology of American
Literature, offers an interesting insight into the social
pressures that fell upon a female colonial poet::
...the worst effect of his [the reader’s] reading will
be unbelief, which will make him question whether it be a
woman’s work, and ask, is it possible? If any do, take
this as an answer from him that dares avow it; it is the work
of a woman, honored, and esteemed where she lives, for her
gracious demeanor, her eminent parts, her pious conversation,
her courteous disposition, her exact diligence in her place,
and discreet managing of her family occasions, and more than
so, these poems are the fruit but of some few hours, curtailed
from her sleep and other refreshments.
In our class discussion we will focus primarily upon Bradstreet’s
poems, exploring how she compares in attitude, tone, style,
focus, and form from the other Puritan texts we have read. Come
to class prepared with quotes from the poems that you believe
illustrate the relationship between Bradstreet’s poetry
and the Puritian beliefs and values articulated in Bradford,
Winthrop, and the New England Primer. For more on Bradstreet,
you may wish to check out these web sites:
Pattie Cowell’s introduction of Bradstreet
for the Heath Anthology of American Literature:
http://college.hmco.com/english/lauter/heath/4e/students/author_pages/colonial/bradstreet_an.html
A web site with eleven of Bradstreet’s poems and a
brief bibliography
http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/authors/abrad.html
A college class web site with a strong bibliography
and other links
http://www.gonzaga.edu/faculty/campbell/enl310/bradstreet.htm
Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758)
Most Edward's fans among American academics would
object to our choice of "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry
God" over the many volumes of philosophy Edwards wrote.
Published in Europe and British America (and probably more respected
in Europe than at home), Edwards believed that new arguments
about the power of the human spirit to choose its destiny constituted
a form of backsliding from the belief that only passive reception
of God's grace could save us. During what we now know as "the
Great Awakening" (which Edwards kicked off in America in
the early 1730's) Edwards frequently read this sermon. For our
purposes in this course, Edwards offers an important context
to our reading of Bradstreet and other Puritan writers. Later,
he will provide an important counter text to American Enlightenment
figures such as Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.
For more on Edwards visit the huge, complex, and
often a wee bit frightening http://www.jonathanedwards.com/
|
