Reading Guide for American Literature: 1700-1820

"An Expanding World and Universe"

What does this mean:  "scripture became more a handmaiden than a guide to metaphysics."

How did people change their thinking about science under the influence of Issac Newton?  What did they come to believe?

Under the influence of John Locke, what became the basis for moral laws?

What were some of the elements which went toward making the colonies a successful enterprise?

What ethnic groups migrated in greater numbers than the English during this period of expansion?

What idea or principle was eroding under the influence of market competition and heretical religious ideas?

"Enlightenment Ideals"

Summarize the changes in religious thought stimulated by Newton and Locke.

Before the Enlightenment, folks believed that God implanted many mysteries in the world and that his ways were often unknowable.  How did this change for those subscribing to Enlightenment ideals?

People came to recognize their highest duty was not  to God, but rather to what?

"Revealed religion" generally means spiritual ideas implanted within a person's mind by a supernatural agent.

By contrast to those who believed in "revealed" truths, where did Deists find their conception of God and religious truth?

Whose and what ideas seemed old-fashioned and out or date to the Deists and Enlightenment thinkers?

Under the influence of Enlightenment philosophy, how did their conception of human nature change?  What maxim by Alexander Pope sums up this change in thought?

John Locke's philosophy suggests a way that humans can become more moral, better.  What is the suggestion?

"Reason and Religion:  The Great Awakening"

What part of the human experience did the divines during the 1700s think the Enlightenment had left out of the human equation?

The period, span of years, considered to be the "First Great Awakening" in the colonies?

George Whitefield is known for . . .?

What element of human experience did Jonathan Edwards see as the key ingredient to re-awakening the Puritan code?  Which doctrines of earlier Puritan Christianity did Edwards seek to drive home most strongly through this form of human experience?

"rhetoric of sensation" -- the use of sensory detail in writing and speaking to awaken strong emotions

What major objection to this new style of preaching developed by Whitefield and Edwards was raised?

What literary device or vehicle/publication became a most important element in this conflict of Enlightenment and "Great Awakening" values and styles?

What did Edwards try to do which, in the end, alienated his audience and caused his downfall?

After leaving the church what did Edwards end up doing for a while?

Ironically [why do I say ironically], how did Edwards die?

"Imperial Politics"

Was Thomas Paine an Enlightenment thinker or did he hearken back to earlier ways of thinking?  In what ways does he show his thinking according to this introduction?

"Pursuing Happiness"

Note esp. the summary of Winthrop's "Model of Christian Charity."  The key to understanding Winthrop's "model" of an ideal society is to understand that it sought "stability" at the price of individuality and equality.  God made an "unequal" world in which some were designed to be poor and ignorant and other rich and smart.

However, what observation by President John Adams seemed to "give the lie" to this idea of Winthrop's?

Who could not vote in the colonies and in early American history?  What was the first of those groups to rebel against this limitation?

Finished this phrase with the name of the two key values of Enlightenment movement:  "Fired by Enlightenment ideals of _________ and ___________. . . . .

Who did Franklin and Crevecoeur think could teach "Americans" something about fellowship and good manners?

Where and when did Benjamin Franklin think he could best find out about the divinity of Christ and religious truth, in general?

How were the Scottish philosophers who influenced the thinking of Franklin and Emerson and Thoreau different from John Locke's thinking on the subject of the source or moral truths?  When these Scottish philosophers used the words  "sense common to all," what kind of things was this "sense" able to inform us of?

Dates

The "Great Awakening" [a span of years]

The War for American Independence [a span of years]

The Declaration of Independence