Puritanism

The Puritanism movement in American literature began around 1600 and lasted until 1800.  The Puritans were Presbyterians from England whom fled to Holland and America in the time of King Henry VIII. Many of the Puritans decided to leave Britain because of religious differences that the Presbyterians and the Anglican Church disagreed upon.  The Puritans were so deeply involved in Christianity that their personal relationship with God became more of a fearful relationship with hell.  They believed in what many people in modern times like to call "turn or burn Christianity".  In other words, they don't believe in God because of his redeeming value in their lives, they believed in Him for the simple fact that they wanted to go to Heaven and not Hell.  They also believed in something that is called predestination.  Predestination is a word that means that the Puritans believed that God had already chosen who was going to Heaven before the people were even put on this earth, and they must live a perfect life in order to stay in God's good graces so they wouldn't upset God and he wouldn't basically change His mind and send them to hell.  The people that were predestined were called the "elect".  This is because these people were elected by God to go to Heaven.  "Confidence in their own elect righteousness gave the Puritans their intense bigotry and intolerance" (Herzberg, 929).  This statement means that the Puritans lived such a “pure” life that their “purity” made them crazily self-righteous. 

This fear was revealed from 1691-1692 during the infamous Salem Witchcraft Trials.  This historic event took place in Salem, MA, when two young girls were playing with magic.  Soon enough, the town became scared and hysterical about the possibility of witchcraft in their small community.  “Many historians believe that Salem experienced a mass hysteria, a sort of shared delusion” (Beers and Odell, 11).  By the end of these trials, nearly 150 people in the small town were accused of witchcraft.  The Puritans were also very smart, in fact, their Protestant Presbyterian Puritanism culture is the Christian group that founded the University of Harvard.  Some people believe that they “were almost fanatic in their love of learning, and produced more books than the people in any other colony” (Herzberg, 929).  That is an honest fact of the Puritans; yes, they had their oddities in their religious beliefs, but they were very smart.  They wrote incredible books, and they have incredibly impacted the American Literature seen from their time, until mine.

  In fact the Puritans even created today's number one college in the United States, the University of Harvard.  It was built on all of their traditional Christian Puritanist values.  To this day, the prestigious University of Harvard still continues to use their Christian beliefs with even their students of today.

Herzberg, "Puritans and Puritanism."The Reader's Encyclopedia of American Literature. 1962.