A Brief History of Time

American Literature Edition

Remember the Puritans. Its where it all started.

Three Main Tenets of Puritanism:

1
2

The Bible is the source of G-ds law. The

only source of G-ds law.

Divine Providence, or predestination. Gd has a plan for you. Dont fight it. And
only some of us will go to heaven (and
those who will are already shining
among us).

Humans are all born with the original

sin of Adam and Eve. Thus, all people
are inherently evil.

In response to the Puritanical expectations, there was:

The Enlightenment
A Celebration of Ideas
Early 1700s early 1800s

Embracing Science and

intellectual curiosity

Rejecting the Church and

the dominant Puritan
religion.
Criticizing and Challenging
the Status Quo

In response to Enlightenment and the Industrial

Revolution, there came:

The Romantic Period

Mid 1800s

A return to:

Nature
The Self
The Supernatural

Although romanticism tends at times to regard nature

as alien, it more often sees in nature a revelation of
Truth . . . and a more suitable subject for art than those
aspects of the world sullied by artifice. Romanticism
seeks to find the Absolute, the Ideal, by transcending
the actual" (A Handbook to Literature).

which brings us to the

transcendentalists

what they were raging against:

intellectualism
unthinking conformity
confines of the church

the answer?
put the self at the center
of the universe:
spiritually
intellectually
personally

And now for your quiz:

Weve talked about evidence and transcendentalism and
Henry David Thoreau. Weve explored a few of the
analogies Thoreau uses to make his point, and weve talked
about what his point is.
Your quiz is reader-response style (informal, personal).
Respond to Thoreaus point (you can agree, disagree, or
qualify) with your own opinion based on your own
experience. Make sure you refer intelligently and
effectively to the text wherever possible (after all, it is a
reading quiz, and you must first and foremost prove that
you read).