Dougherty-Puritan Blog

Colonist John Winthrop was a Puritan lawyer, educated in England and the leader of the Massachusetts
Bay Colony that settled in northeastern America in 1630.  Together with other like minded
English Puritans he had left England to escape religious oppression and establish a pure

religious movement.  His “A Model of Christian Charity” was a sermon he gave the Puritans
while in transit across the Atlantic Ocean likely intended to prepare them for the many
challenges and hardships they would face in the New World.  He clearly was trying to motivate
his audience to adopt a more communal approach to governing their colony so as to enhance
the probability of its survival.  He wanted them to sacrifice individuality for the greater good.
This was problematic because Puritans were striving for an ever more pure and individual
relationship between themselves and God.  Therefore, Winthrop had to provide them with a
conceptual framework or model that embodied an altruistic and collectivist approach and that
had a religious underpinning.  In effect, Winthrop was teaching that personal salvation was
dependent in some measure on a shift to more collective behavior on the part of the Puritans.
His sermon accomplished this by pointing out that God had created  mankind with a certain
diversity (the rich and poor; the powerful and those without power), that this diversity
permitted different ways in which God could be praised, and that a commonality among people
in the form of love and charity was essential to the spiritual nature of Puritans and their
covenant with God and the good of the whole.  Using a question and answer format, Winthrop
then applied these principles to real life situations and thus provided his audience with an
understanding of why, when and how they should act.  Having laid out his model of tolerance,
charity and diversity, and its origin in the divine nature of God, Winthrop exhorted his
congregation to follow the model and provide an example for future generations to follow (“the
City upon a Hill”).
Anne Bradstreet, another member of the original group of Puritans arriving in America, was initially overwhelmed by sickness (small pox and tuberculosis), and the primitive nature of the living conditions in the New World.  She had been educated in England, had an inquisitive nature, was well read, and became the mother of eight children.  
Her poems are wonderful.  While they clearly show that she is a devout Puritan and hence is in agreement with the standard roles of men and women in the Puritan society, she also on a number of occasions takes issue with some of the stereotypes surrounding women.  Still, she believed marriage to be of divine origin and much of her life centered around her family.  Her poems are primarily addressed to them and were very private expressions of her struggles with hardship, her love for her husband and family, her love of God, mortality, and her opinions regarding women’s status in her society.
I found her writing loving, reflective, and personal.   She writes of stoicism ( “Verses upon the Burning of our House”) and love (“To my Dear and Loving Husband”).  She often deals with the suffering and struggles in her life by resorting to her inner strength and religious faith.
In “In Honour of that High and Mighty Princess, Queen Elizabeth,” she addresses the issue of gender bias and proclaims women’s worth and their intellectual capacity.
Her style uses many religious symbols and metaphors (e.g.  “I prize thy love more than whole Mines of gold”).  Although reflective, she has a positive tone throughout her poems.
Bradstreet’s writing reflects in a very personal way the life of an educated, but religious woman with opinions who copes with very difficult life challenges in an intelligent and stoic manner.