The Periods and Movements over time have changed massively and each period helped create a different movement in society. The Colonial Time Period caused a movement about religious views and equality. The Revolutionary Time Period caused a movement on being free and be able to not depend on each other. The Romanticism and Transcendentalism Time Period caused a movement with emotions and the ideas of the nature of the world. The Realism Time Period caused a movement with unrealistic ideas; causing people to see bigger picture that was not always happy. The Modernism Time Period caused a movement with a personal connection and emotions ideas to the world. There is always a way to make a difference and literature is not always the only way to impact the world.
The Colonial Time Period, containing the Puritan Plain style of writing, was a movement that was used by most of the New Englanders about equality and religion. The way the words were written hit people in a religious way which caused people to see their religious views differently; this lead people to think about their religion and life after death. In the poem, Huswifery by Edward Taylor, he compares God to a spinning wheel. This was written differently than people were used to; yet, made an impact on people. Some writings, like Simmers in the Hands of an Angry Man by Jonathan Edwards, scared people into fearing God but in a good way. People were so scared they did not want to die without God and this helped bond people together. Possibly, the only reason people had reconsidered their religious views is because of the stress on being equal. A Narrative of the Captivity by Mary Rowlandson demonstrates the fact that all people are equal, even with different skin tones or langu...
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..., The Sandlot, is “there are heroes and there are legends. Heroes get remembered but legends never die”.
Over a long period of time, different movements have changed and in each period a new movement was created. The equality and religion helped cause a movement during the Colonial Time Period. The Being free and independent helped cause a movement during the Revolutionary Time Period. Emotions and ideas of nature helped cause a movement during the Romanticism and Transcendentalism Time Period. Unrealistic ideas and saddening ideas that caused people to see bigger picture of life helped cause a movement during the Realism Time Period. Personal connections and emotions ideas to the world helped cause a movement during the Modernism Time Period. Literature is not the only way to make a mark on the world, but books are a great place to start to go down in history.
On February 10, 1675, Mary Rowland was captured in Lancaster, Massachusetts. While being held captive, she narrated her experiences and tried to affirm her Puritan beliefs throughout her survival of being in captivity. She’d rather go with the “ravenous Beasts” than die because she wanted to “declare” of what was happening to her throughout her journey (70). Mary Rowlandson believed God was omniscient, forgiving, and omnipotent and it shaped her perception of the world in an affirmative way throughout all the chaos and suffering.
In the 1700’s the Puritans left England for the fear of being persecuted. They moved to America for religious freedom. The Puritans lived from God’s laws. They did not depend as much on material things, and they had a simpler and conservative life. More than a hundred years later, the Puritan’s belief toward their church started to fade away. Some Puritans were not able to recognize their religion any longer, they felt that their congregations had grown too self-satisfied. They left their congregations, and their devotion to God gradually faded away. To rekindle the fervor that the early Puritans had, Jonathan Edwards and other Puritan ministers led a religious revival through New England. Edwards preached intense sermons that awakened his congregation to an awareness of their sins. With Edwards’ sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” he persuades the Puritans to convert back to Puritanism, by utilizing rhetorical strategies such as, imagery, loaded diction, and a threatening and fearful tone.
He was a man whose very words struck fear into the hearts of his listeners. Acknowledged as one of the most powerful religious speakers of the era, he spearheaded the Great Awakening. “This was a time when the intense fervor of the first Puritans had subsided somewhat” (Heyrmen 1) due to a resurgence of religious zeal (Stein 1) in colonists through faith rather than predestination. Jonathan Edwards however sought to arouse the religious intensity of the colonists (Edwards 1) through his preaching. But how and why was Edwards so successful? What influenced him? How did he use diction and symbolism to persuade his listener, and what was the reaction to his teachings? In order to understand these questions one must look at his life and works to understand how he was successful. In his most influential sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, Jonathan Edwards’ persuasive language awakened the religious fervor that lay dormant in colonial Americans and made him the most famous puritan minister of the Great Awakening in North America.
Religion was the foundation of the early Colonial American Puritan writings. Many of the early settlements were comprised of men and women who fled Europe in the face of persecution to come to a new land and worship according to their own will. Their beliefs were stalwartly rooted in the fact that God should be involved with all facets of their lives and constantly worshiped. These Puritans writings focused on their religious foundations related to their exodus from Europe and religions role in their life on the new continent. Their literature helped to proselytize the message of God and focused on hard work and strict adherence to religious principles, thus avoiding eternal damnation. These main themes are evident in the writings of Jonathan Edwards, Cotton Mathers, and John Winthrop. This paper will explore the writings of these three men and how their religious views shaped their literary works, styles, and their historical and political views.
In the Puritan communities, religion was not just a belief, but a way of life. Puritans were god fearing. They spent a great deal of time reading the bible and going to church. Puritans believed they were the “chosen ones” and that God was responsible for all favorable activity. Mary Rowlandson demonstrates that she was a great Puritan, and that God had specifically chosen her. She praises God for any good fortune received or deed accepted by her from the Indians. During her fourteenth remove, it began to rain, and the Indians co...
Literature has played a large role in the way we perceive the world and it can affect the way in which we think about things. Edgar Allan Poe along with Mark Twain are two of the most influential authors that our world has ever seen. Their descriptiveness and diction has had a huge impact on their readers for centuries. Poe’s gothic style of writing was very enthralling and suspenseful; it left you wanting to know what was going to happen next. Whereas, Mark Twain was a very humorous author that intended to amuse all that read. The descriptiveness that was incorporated by these world-renown authors is tremendous.
The Puritans played a large role in early American history and society. Most Puritans escaped the tyrannical rule in England to gain religious freedom in America, which helped create an early American society. Not only did the Puritans help form the early American society and religion, they also contributed to the earliest stories and narratives to help create a rich literary history for America. Puritan literature has helped many scholars and readers learn about early American history. One of the most famous American narratives is from Mary Rowlandson, who was the wife of a Puritan Minister. Mary Rowlandson’s captivity narrative is about her story of how she was captured and treated by Native American captors. Throughout the narrative Mary intertwined her experience with her Puritan beliefs. The narrative has helped gain a better historical understanding of the struggle of power between the English Colonies and the Native Americans, as well as providing the reader with a basic understanding of Puritan beliefs. While Mary Rowlandson’s narrative is about her survival experience with the Native Americans, the narrative helps expose Puritan theology and Puritan thoughts toward Native Americans.
The Realism Movement in the nineteen century provoked society to transition into a whole new mindset in the way they viewed the world. It was more than a movement or a passive trend, but it became more of a lifestyle. In the 18th century, the United States experienced The Enlightenment in which society became more open to becoming more educated. This is a broad interpretation of the time era that said that, “The Enlightenment produced the first modern theories of psychology and ethics…. creating the individual character according to the individual experience” (Bodrogean, Adina). United States transitioned into a Romanticism era that due to the romantic artists and authors common themes at the time were the nature of love, right vs evil, and heroism. Authors were sugar coating their works and about heroes just unrealistic anecdotes about life. The Civil War was a turning point society became aware about the hardships, devastation and fear. Life wasn’t all about hope and optimism. Society would start to question religion and life itself which led to the realist view of the time era. We transitioned into a new era where society encounters the hardships in life and how Romanticism was not all the life was about. In the nineteen century the Realism Movement was uprising in the literature aspect with authors and playwrights such as Langston Hughes, Henrik Ibsen, and Anton Chekhov.
The Progressive Movement, or the Progressive Era, was a time period between 1900 and 1920. This was a time of great social and economic change. Those who pushed for the Movement were called Progressives. Progressives wanted to cure the ills of American society that had developed during the great spurt of industrial growth in the last quarter of the 19th century. Although all goals were not met, the Progressive Movement was very successful because of the way it improved working conditions for those in all labor fields, put limits on child labor, and made the food and drug industry safe for consumers. The corruption and undue influence in the government was still seen and there was still small inclusion of the people in the political process. Even with these goals not being met, the Movement was successful because of the social and economic improvements. The many acts and administrations created by protests, strikes of workers, and political onlookers not only improved our country democratically, but socially and industrially.
Because of their Puritanical beliefs, it is no surprise that the major theme that runs throughout Mary Rowlandson and Jonathan Edwards’s writings is religion. This aspect of religion is apparent in not only the constant mentions about God himself, but also in the heavy use of biblical scriptures. In their respective writings, Rowlandson and Edwards utilize scripture, but for different purposes; one uses it to convey that good and bad events happen solely because of God’s will, and the other uses it, in one instance, to illustrate how it brought him closer to God, and, in another instance, to justify his harsh claims about God’s powerful wrath.
Within three Puritan works, Rowlandson and Edwards displayed their religious beliefs through their thoughts on God and mankind. One of the many Puritan beliefs was that the bible is the basis of all teaching. Such examples of this are evident in Mary Rowlandson’s work “Captivity”. Even though she was a captive, she still took note of “the wonderful mercy of God” for the simple fact that He “[sent her] a bible” (Rowlandson 67). Feeling lost, the bible brought her back to her faith in a time of need, and enlightened her on the hope that “there was mercy promised again”(67). From then on she looked to the Bible for guidance in times of despair. Throughout her imprisonment, she often pondered about “the wonderful goodness of God” when she felt anguish (66).
During the enlightenment, basic changes occurred in society. The philosophes helped bring about freedom of thought and speech, two freedoms which we often take for granted today. People became more educated, as a "print culture" emerged. Journals, newspapers and books were beginning to be widely available to the general public. This had both negative and positive impacts. The literate and illiterate became divided, and the illiterate poor only became poorer. However, the "print culture" did create the influential social force of public opinion. Writers wrote what their audiences wanted to hear, and that translated into a governmental awareness of public opinion. Governments tried to regulate and censor books, but they could not ignore the public’s criticisms of the government. The changes in society created a general sentiment of self-interest. People wanted to promote their happiness and welfare, and they were "confident and optimistic that they could discover natural law and perfect worlds." Sometimes, there was an "exaggerated belief in the perfectibility of man," such as in the sciences, which were still in early stages.2
This chapter talks about social change and how it happens and the theories behind social movements. The five essay questions at the end of this chapter are answered below.
Literature is a very powerful tool that is used to make a huge impact on society or in someone’s perspective. Literature comes in different forms and each literature form fits in a certain category or role to help understand the true meaning of it. From playwrights to short stories, each one has moral lesson, a message or a reflection of the author. I have witnessed the power of literature several times. Literature has moved teens to better being; it has motivated unfortunate people to fame, used as an educational process of teaching and most of all, entertainment. Back in the day, plays were on of the most famous forms of entertainment. Without television and radio present, plays served as a substitute to entertain certain groups of people like the royal family or just for the whole public. This was one way of making money by the actors and the authors that wrote the play. Also present during those times were the poem recitals. This is similar to a play but fewer people are present in the stage or sometimes solo performance. Today, Literature is still being used as a form of entertainment and educational intentions. Hollywood made a lot of money by revising the great masterpieces of famous authors such as “Rome and Juliet” by William Shakespeare. Also, they made movies out of hundreds of literary works for educational purposes and better understanding of the literature piece. Each form of literature has its own style. The style determines how it influences the audience to absorb the true meaning and moral of the story or poem. William Shakespeare and Benjamin Franklin were truly persuasive while Washington Irving and Edgar Allan Poe mixed mystery and adventure to their works. The style touches the readers which really makes a good relationship from the reader to the author’s literary masterpieces.
Modernism in literature was a new form of expressing one’s opinions that would go on to change the world and the many authors on it, forever. Modernists focused on new ideals on the world and the society that people live in and how it had many problems that people seemed to overlook. Modernists, in other words, looked for the areas of society and of human nature itself that weren’t always pushed out in front and showcased them all for the world to see. This almost cynical view of the world came from a variety of factors, the most prominent to many modernists being World War I. World War I...