Puritanism & Enligthenment

Question 1

Puritan literature: characteristics (5), functions (3), main genres (3) and authors (6)

Answer 1

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”

Question 2

Enlightenment writing

Answer 2

• 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”