UTOPIAN PROMISE - Annenberg Media

[4427] John Stevens, The Mary Carr
Stone (1721), courtesy of Wesleyan
University Press. The Mary Carr Stone, in
Old Common Burying-ground in
Newport, Rhode Island, reads “Here
lyeth the Body of Mary the Wife of John
Carr, Dyed Sepr; ye 28th: 1721: in ye
21st: year of her age.” The carving was
made by the elder Stevens, a carver
known for both the quality and the innovativeness
of his work. The stone’s
imagery emphasizes rebirth. The sides
and bottom feature intricate leaf patterns,
pilasters, rosettes: flower and
leaves were associated with the life of
man (Job 14) and fecundity. At the top is
a cherub with wings, and at the base is
a pair of peacocks, symbols of immortality.
[4433] Michael Wigglesworth, The Day
of Doom. Or, A Short Description of the
Great and Last Judgment. With a Short
Discourse about Eternity. By Michael
Wigglesworth. The Seventh Edition,
Enlarged. With a recommendatory epistle
(in verse) by the Rev. Mr. John Mitchel
(1715), courtesy of the Tracy W.
McGregor Library of American History,
University of Virginia. Originally published
in 1662, this New England bestseller
was often memorized by the pious:
by 1715 it was already in its seventh
edition. The poem tells of the coming of
Christ on judgment day and the separating
of the sheep (saved) from the goats
(unsaved). A jeremiad, the text uses fire
and brimstone to encourage sinful readers
to repent.
36 UNIT 3, UTOPIAN PROMISE
Context: Compare Wigglesworth’s “Day of Doom” with Taylor’s
“Meditation 42” and Bradstreet’s “The Flesh and the Spirit.”
Compare the poets’ visions of the afterlife. Do they have different
views about God’s wrathfulness? About his mercy? What do their
descriptions of heaven have in common? How are they different?
Context: Examine the engraved images on the gravestones featured in
the archive; then skim the poetry of Anne Bradstreet and Edward
Taylor. Do you find any overlap in the imagery deployed? When you
find similar imagery used (birds or flowers, for example), examine
the context carefully. Do you think the stone carvers invested these
symbols with the same meaning that Bradstreet or Taylor did? Why
or why not?
Exploration: As you have read, apocalyptic thinking gained great cultural
currency in New England in the seventeenth century. In our
own time, anxiety about the Cold War and the dawning of the year
2000 created a great deal of interest in the Apocalypse. How does
late-twentieth-century thinking about the Apocalypse compare to
Puritan apocalyptic ideas? How do contemporary films and literature
having to do with the Apocalypse compare to Puritan writings?
Exploration: Puritans often used Wigglesworth’s “Day of Doom” to
teach children basic religious and social principles. What effect do
you think the poem would have on young children? How does the
poem compare to Victorian and twentieth-century poetry created
for children? How do you think American attitudes toward childhood
have changed since the seventeenth century?
Exploration: Examine the Puritan gravestones in the archive; then
think about other, later American graves you may have seen
(Grant’s tomb, Kennedy’s eternal flame, battlefield grave markers,
etc.). What kinds of cultural values and attitudes toward death
do these later graves reflect? How are they different from Puritan
values?
Souls in Need of Salvation, Satan’s Agents, or Brothers in
Peace?: English Settlers’ Views of Native Americans
When English immigrants set sail for the “New World” in the early
seventeenth century, many of them believed that they would be settling
what William Bradford called “a vast and unpeopled country.”
When they arrived in America, however, they found not an empty
wilderness but a developed region with a large population of Native
Americans. Despite tendencies to view “the Indians” as a monolithic
group, it is important to realize that Native American culture was
extremely diverse; different tribes spoke different languages, created
different political structures, and developed distinct cultural practices.
Often, they fought among themselves over rights to land and game.
Native American communities developed different strategies for dealing
with the European settlers who began descending on their land in
the seventeenth century: some opted to resist, some fled their traditional
homelands, some sought accommodation, and some struck