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Religion in Colonial America

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Religion in Colonial America
Deanna Levant
ENG 491/American Literature to 1860
Professor Rathi Krishnan
October 27, 2014

The Colonial period was an abundant period of American history in its source of respectful and influential people who helped to shape modern society through questioning the past beliefs. As a result, many people came to America with the purpose of searching for religious freedom. Their major hopes and wishes were to escape the religious persecution, which they were forced to face. In addition, they had the opportunity to choose religion that wished to be part of. Hence, the settlers came here with a load of European cultural and artistic traditions and began to implement them in real life. Consequently, the earliest writings that emerged during the colonial period were religious tracts and historical essays. Thus, this paper presents the information on the role of religion in colonial American literature and discusses the works of colonial authors to analyze how their religious views shape their literary works, their styles, and their interpretation of historical and political events. To start with, for the Puritans of the Colonial Period, various creations were actually connected to their religious beliefs and views of God. The Puritans sailed to America in order to build their lives on biblical laws away from the rule of the old church. Severe Calvinists, they believed in the indisputable authority of God, predestination, original sin and the doctrine of the elect person, according to which the person is not the case, but only a handful of the grace of God saves the elect from eternal damnation. Puritans borrowed from the Bible, not only laws, but also literary style: simple, austere and impersonal. For example, Anne Bradstreet, a well-known colonial writer, began American

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