American Literature

Posted by Winnie Melda on February 6th, 2019

William Bradford

            Of Plymouth Plantation was the most important works of Bradford. It is a story that gives account to the Puritans activities from 1621 to 1646. This work for two centuries was in the manuscript form, yet widely circulated. The manuscript during the American Revolution disappeared mysteriously, and it was assumed that an a British soldier from the New England Library. It was until 1855 that the scholars found out that the manuscript was in the Bishop of London's library under Pilgrim history at the Fulham Palace. It is how the long-lost manuscript by Bradford was found and published the year that followed. Of Plymouth Plantation is a narration of the year to year events but it is not a journal or diary but is a retrospective of two texts (Wenska, 137).

The first text was a providential history composition that stresses the Separatists struggles and its spiritual importance in reaching America. It was until 1646 that Bradford started to write about the stories of the North America’s Pilgrims by drawing from earlier letters and notes. This second book provides a less coherent structure, and it is annalistic. Unlike the first book, it shows the little concern to the prosaic details about the colony’s life. The second book also reflects off the growing anxiety that Bradford had concerning the colonist’s spiritual welfare and his uncertainty about the Providence workings. Bradford at the beginning of 1648 started writing a series of didactic works that targeted the younger generations. He wrote poems like “Some Observations of God's Merciful Dealing with Us in This Wilderness” and “On the in Old and New England”. He also wrote the two dialogues, “A Dialogue or 3d Conference” (1652) and the sum of a Conference between some Younger-men born in New England (1648).

 Even before the publication of “Of Plymouth Plantation” in 1856 it was already a crucial source of information for the early American historians like Mather Increase. Mather used this manuscript in writing his accounts of the Indian war. Cotton Mather also used the book in writing about the colony of Plymouth. After its publication, the text gained many admirations because of Bradford’s’ strength of character and sincerity. Also, this book makes Bradford be prose stylists or a knowledgeable historian. His book also shows his contribution to construction the American history and shows how his Puritan piety helped him in sharing his view of history. The main themes of this book are both the theological themes and colonial histories. It also shows Bradford’s economic and commercial concerns.

 All these themes show the intersection of family, society, spirituality, economics and commerce. In the process of exclusion and inclusion, Bradford’s writings also highlight the themes of race, gender, and sexuality that were all part of the community life as shown in this book. The book also shows the Puritan’s plain style that is different from the earlier ornamented prose writing of the Renaissance authors. This seeming simplicity of the author’s writing is like a result of the conscious literary intent. His writing also covers a broad range of techniques and styles (Levin, 234).

 The community concept is what pervades the entire text. Bradford provides an account of the communitarian enterprise and its crisis as a foreshadow of the eventual fragmentation and dispersal that later fell upon the colony. Of Plymouth Plantation in this context provides an account of the internal wickedness and material greed as well as the external threats that besieged the community constantly. Another thematic tension is the relationship between secular and sacred history. Bradford mainly insists of God’s special providence of the few chosen by God at a time of crisis. This theme exists as a counterpoise to other detailed catalogs of human contrivances, negotiations and machinations that were part of the daily life in America and England (Daly, 567).

 Of Plymouth Plantation is a book with its aesthetic virtues of being written in a plain style. The simplicity is in the form of its concreteness of tropes and imagery as well as syntactic rhythms that demonstrate the power of rhetoric’s. Theoretically, this plain style is a reflection of the need of erasing the self in which the author refers to himself as the governor. Therefore, in his creation he developed his stylistic approach in the choice of words derived from the Biblical word of God. His work shows that theological rigor among the Puritan thought that enabled them have a distinctive voice. For the case of Bradford, this voice showed his unique humility, compassion and embittered self (Howard, 237).

The Puritan typology is a problematic issue in Bradford’s history. The typology that is in the Old Testament was not only a prefiguring of the happenings of the New Testament but is an element in contemporary history. Thus, the correlation between the “saints” of Plymouth and the Old Testament Hebrews is not a stable one. For example, in Bradford alluding to Mount Pisgah, he is suggesting the distinction between the New England’s wild terrors and the Israelites in the Promised Land. Therefore, his allegory and imagery to the biblical story does not correlate.

Work cited

 Daly, Robert. Bradford's History vision.  Literature for  American.  44 (1973): 557-69.

 Howard, Alan.  History in Of Plymouth Plantation and Its Art by Bradford's. William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd  28 (1971): 237-66.

 Levin, David.  The Value of Puritan Historiography by William Bradford:   University of Wisconsin Press, 1972.

Wenska, Walter P. "Bradford's Two Histories." Early American Literature 8 (1978): 151-6

Sherry Roberts is the author of this paper. A senior editor at MeldaResearch.Com in graduate paper writing service if you need a similar paper you can place your order from custom research paper writing service.