I. INTRODUCTION
A. John Dunton’s Religious accounts exemplify the fear and concern the English had over a lack of religious and political authority in New England. This was exacerbated by a backlash against fanaticism that occurred in the late 17th century. John Dunton’s account serves as an allegory of what society would be like if the people diverted from the religious authority of the Church of England and moreover the Anglican faith.
II. FEAR OF LAWLESSNESS
A. Memories from the English Civil War and the Commonwealth drive the English people to fear a society not strictly under the English laws or religion.
1) The civil war period is often blamed on the independents and separatists who lived in large numbers in England during this time. Before the restoration many of these groups fled to the New World.
2) I will pull in Bulchez and Key’s book on Modern England to get most of the text for this paragraph. It will make clear why the English people are so scared of the lack of traditional religious and political structures in New England.
B. The lack of traditional political and religious structures led to a New England society that was harder to regulate.
1) The laws of New England at this time differ from Colony to Colony depending on the settlements religious affiliation. The laws of the Church of England are rarely followed both because the people of the settlement don’t follow that religion, and because there are no Clergy members and few priests to led followers of the Church of England in New England.
2) Pull in John Dunton’s detailed descriptions of the Church government in New England. As well as Lippy’s book on American Religion which highlights difference between English and New England religion at this time.
C. This fear was enough to make King James II completely restructure the New England colonial government in 1686.
III. FEAR OF FANATICISIM
A. Towards the end of the 17th century, England was moving toward a period of early Enlightenment. They were moving away from the religious radicalism that had been prevalent at the beginning of the century and towards what they believed to be a more rational form of religion.
B. As John Dunton examines the religion of New England it appears to incorporate the type of radicalism the English are trying to avoid. The continued belief in supernatural occurrences like witches and their rejection of traditional forms of religious authority exemplified the types of religious occurrences the English no longer wanted to be a part of.
IV. JOHN DUNTON BIAS
A. Many of John Dunton’s descriptions of New Englanders are similar to descriptions written about puritans in the early 17th century. This pulls into question if he is simply reasserting previous beliefs or asserting actual ones.
B. His plagiarized work aids to allegorical nature of his account by exaggerating the negative aspects of New England society. However his positive religious personal relations with some individuals seem to attempt to display that there was some hope for the society.
C. John Dunton’s strong Anglican faith leads his observances of the New Englander’s to be skewed, based on the fact that few New Englanders were observing what he would consider the true Anglican faith at this time.
V. IS THE ACCOUNT TRUE?
A. Take information gained from research from New England religion, to conclude if we can judge John Dunton's account and determine if its account of religion can be viewed as true. Is it an accurate representation to New England or does its plagiarism and goals thereof change that?
Hey Mackenzie, your outline is well thought out and nicely structured.
ReplyDeleteWhile you're judging the validity of Dunton's work, will you also look at the authors he may or may not have plagiarized? It seems like his work might be somewhat accurate if he's copying from actual accounts, but I guess your worry is that he's sensationalizing some details and omitting others.
Anyway, I think you know where you want to go with this paper, but my only suggestion is to really pay attention to the authors that may have influenced Dunton (which I'm sure you're already doing to some degree).
Hey Mackenzie,
ReplyDeleteYour outline looks very solid and put together. What are your thoughts on the conclusion? Do you want to end with paragraph five on the truth of the account? Because I feel like while that's interesting, it's not necessarily the core of your argument as it stands. It would also be interesting if you could look at New England society and see if Dunton's fears of fanatacism and lawlessness were justified, or if he was blinded by his concern that the Anglican Church was being ignored. does the Lippy book talk about American society as a whole at all? because it might be interesting to go a little bit beyond the religious perspective and into the social/political background of the world that Dunton was writing about.
Hi Mackenzie,
ReplyDeleteVery organized outline. I agree with Cameron's suggestion that the validity debate might not be the strongest note to end on, though, at least for me, it's really hard to tell what my conclusion will look like when I'm not writing the paper.
I also agree with Billy about looking at the plagiarized sections closely, but I think because it might be able to tell you what was commonly believed or written about at the time.
Nice outline, Mackenzie!
ReplyDeleteI like how you constructed an argument that doesn't depend on the plagiarism question but instead focuses on what concerns and fears it was playing to regardless. It struck me that you might be able to make a similar point to the one Amir sounds like he's going to make about observations of religion in the New World - your thesis seems to point to the fears the English had about their own religion that were enlivened by seeing English people deviate in America.
I really like your argument and I agree with Aysha that this reminds me of my own argument - cool! I think maybe you should include more secondary sources, but I guess you might know a few having taking Professor Como's classes on England. Also, I suggest you move the section on Dunton's bias to the introduction since it introduces the fears you wish to discuss.
ReplyDeleteMi Mackenzie,
ReplyDeleteFrom the layout of your outline it seems that the first part - describing fear of lawlessness and fanaticism and illustrating them with Dunton's work - is the most important part of your paper. By bringing up the question of whether "he is simply reasserting previous beliefs or asserting actual ones," you're going in a completely new direction and it kind of breaks your paper into two parts that I'm not sure how you'd reconcile under one thesis. What does it matter if he was plagiarizing (a very common act at the time)? If he was, doesn't it just prove that the sentiments he holds were in fact perfect examples of the generalizations of English religious fears that you talked about in the first half? I guess it will depend on what you conclude about the validity of his statements, but first you need to show why it's important to determine how much he was plagiarizing.
Hey Mackenzie,
ReplyDeleteThe angle you've developed about Dunton seeing the new englangers as lawless and fanatics sounds really good. Do you think there is a correlation in his mind between lawlessness and fanaticism-- both relics of the past, which England overcame after the civil wars? I also like the way you stuck to thinking about whether or not the account is even true, but you incorporated it into your larger argument.