Puritanism & Enligthenment Flashcards
Puritan literature: characteristics (5), functions (3), main genres (3) and authors (6)
CHARACTERISTICS
- Anything written is literature
- Content-based
- Allegorical and doctrinal
- Plaine style
- Constant comparisons between Puritans and Biblical figures
FUNCTIONS
- To preserve and spread knowledge
- Record history
- Affirm the community, its practices and ideas
GENRES
- Sermons
- Biographies and autobiographies
- History chronicles
AUTHORS
- John Cotton
- John Winthrop “Journals”
- Jonathan Edwards
- Thomas Shepard “The Sincere Convert”
- William Bradfrod “Historie of the Plimmoth Plantantion”
- Cotton Mather “Magnalia Christi Americana”
Enlightenment writing
- Practical, useful, didactic
- Topics: contemporary issues (political conflicts)
- Influenced by British authors such as Pope or Dryden
Authors:
- Thomas Paine “Common Sense”
- Thomas Jefferson
- Benjamin Franklin “Autobiography”