The Influence Of Puritanism Upon American Literature-from The 17～(th) Century To The 19～(th) Century

The dissertation is a macro-study of Puritanism's influence upon the 17th-19th century American literature. As the main resource of American culture, Puritanism has exerted a far-reaching impact on American culture and literature. Perry Miller said: "If we can not understand Puritanism, we can not understand America". Although originated from Britain, it has greatly changed, from content to form, from national culture to spirit, in North America, with much greater influence than British one.Considered from the perspective of literature, Puritanism is a social force, as well as an emotional one. Based on this, the dissertation starts with the three values of American Puritanism, and sets up the basic structure of its influence on American literature. The first is beliefs, the second ethics, and third secular aspects.Accordingly, Puritanism impact on American literature embodies as three aspects: the teaching beliefs, secular spirit, and ethic morality. From the devotional perspective, inheriting Calvinist Puritanism' s stressing piety, awe and absolute obedience to God, its devotional foundation is "original sin" and "fatalism". And in literature, the teachings are publicized, eulogizing God, depicting the fall of man, singing the saints' diligence. This kind of works was mainly produced in colonial period in 17th century. From the perspective of secularity, Puritanism produced American featured individualism. And in literature, American Creed, American dream and creativity are sung high praise for. From the perspective of ethics, Puritanism' hard-working, introspection and asceticism influenced the puritans' behaviors, and also fettered their free thought. Generations of writers criticized and reflect it. The conflict of deity and humanity, beliefs and freedom, original sin and kindness and evils become a lasting theme in American literature.Foreign scholars did a lot of studies on Puritanism, mainly on religion, sociology, politics, etc. And they did much less on Puritanism influence upon the 17th-19th century American literature, and didn't distinguish the difference between Christianity and Puritanism. In fact, Christianity went through Protestantism and pan-Christianity. In its history, its teachings and denominations got weakened, and finally replaced by pan-Christianity at the end of 19th century and the beginning of 20th century. Therefore, as the main thought system, Puritanism had the general features of Christianity, as well as its own specific nature. So it is not comprehensive or accurate to neglect the specific nature and to comment Christianity's impact on American literature. Currently, domestic studies on it are scarce and very few people concern this issue, thus the dissertation is of much value.The dissertation consists of four chapters. The introduction is divided into two parts. The first introduces the study objective, the current situation of study, and research methods. The second introduces the logic of the research, mainly the main structure of the dissertation. Chapter one clarifies the resource of Puritanism, the main content of and values of Puritanism, the inheritance and variation of American Puritanism from British one. It offers a sufficient ground for the coming chapters. Chapter 2 to Chapter 4 are the body of the dissertation, mainly reviewing Puritanism's impact on 17th, 18th and 19th century American literature.Chapter 2 explores the characteristics of puritan literature, and reviews the relationship between Puritanism and puritan literature, and tries to make up the basic structure of puritan literary tradition. Chapter 3 discusses Puritanism influence on the literature after American independence, involving its impact on American revolutionary, the relationship between American Creed and Puritanism, the birth and development of American dream, and its impact on the western literature. Chapter 4 starts with the relationship between Puritanism and transcendentalism, discusses themasterstroke of the 19th literature--individualism and the criticism ofindividualism. And the conclusion is a summary and reflection of this study. The dissertation tries to make efforts at the following:1. The dissertation is a systematical overall study of American puritan literature, comprehensively explores the relationship between Puritanism and American literature from the 17th to 19th century.2. The dissertation starts with the special values of American Puritanism--theological beliefs, secular spirit and ethic morality, demonstrates the three stages ofAmerican literature from the 17th to 19th century--religious stage, secular stage andmoral criticism and reflection stage. It is a big attempt.3. To some degree, the dissertation makes up the American puritan literary tradition, and clarifies its development in America. Meanwhile, I distinguish the Christianity literary tradition and puritan literary tradition, and explore the special connotation of "myth symbol" and "Bible discourse".In spite of some studies on American puritan literary tradition, they are mostly from the perspectives of literary history or thought history. And they grasped neither the cultural connotation and nature, nor the way puritan literary tradition developed in American literature. And this dissertation is the first of this kind, pointing out that Puritanism not only has brought up the religious tradition of American literature but is the resource of "American Spirit"...