In 1991, I argued that, “The Puritan patrimony has exacted a heavy toll on men, a fact borne out by our present ‘crisis in masculinity,’” which second wave feminists identified as the existence of “a rape culture” in the United States. A contributing factor was the narrative of religious conversion innovated by early New England Puritanism, which required believers to become spiritual “brides of Christ” in order to be saved. This devotional rhetoric not only colored Puritan poetry but indicated deeply held attitudes about spirituality, embodied gender, and social power, which shaped subsequent US poetry. In this chapter, I revisit and update these claims in the light of trans theory, reread poetry on spiritual gender by Anne Bradstreet and Edward Taylor, early New England’s two major poets; and conclude with a discussion of Emily Dickinson, who was raised in a Puritan culture but makes irreverent, even subversive, use of this legacy.

Gender in American puritanism was shaped by both figurative language used in spiritual discourse and opportunities for religious activity afforded to women by puritan theology and congregational church organization. This chapter examines three broad areas in which gender was shaped and debated within American puritanism. The first is spiritual practices, especially as reflected in puritan conversion narratives. Here we see some of the most specifically puritan expressions of gender, which demonstrate a more mobile relationship between femininity and masculinity than stereotypes might suggest. Conversion narratives also constitute an important location for women’s public discourse particular to New England puritanism. The second is trials, the location of some of the best-known dramas of gender conflict that continue to incite and entertain modern audiences. In looking at trials, we get a better sense of how civil and religious law come together in the early New England colonies. We also get a glimpse into how class, race, and ethnicity inflect characterizations of gender. And despite the disciplinary framework, we also see another form of female agency and gender debate. Finally, Anne Bradstreet’s treatment of gendered embodiment provides an example of a woman poet’s participation in debates about gender.

This chapter offers an understanding of puritan aesthetics by approaching it through the religious experience of conversion. Insofar as aesthetics are ever thought of in relation to puritanism, the usual scholarly conversation concerns the role, relevance, and consequences of the puritan plain style. Plain style matters, but it does not explain the broader aesthetic intentions or forms of puritan writing. Conversion comes much closer to the heart of it. Radical Protestants in early New England insisted that true religion began with the power of God acting on the individual to produce conversion to a new life of delight in God. The unconverted might seek to “prepare” themselves for that transformation of the heart, but predestinarian theology demanded that the crucial moment of change must be utterly external – a true work of God and not one of self-fashioning. In preaching, in poetry, and in personal conversion relations, puritans used the language of the heart to describe God’s power in conversion. This chapter traces how the response to sorrow and beauty characterizes puritan conversion stories from the first establishment of the colony of Massachusetts.

Studying puritan literature requires a sense of the erratic paths that seventeenth-century New England writing take in the world as well as the material contexts that give rise to more or less stable texts gathered up in anthologies and modern editions. The aim of this chapter is to elaborate the ways that the logic of manuscript culture informs puritan literary culture across material genres, using the poet Anne Bradstreet’s unusual case to elucidate typical means of manuscript practice, production, and circulation. A bit of knowledge of manuscript culture, its generic and practical conventions, and its role in the larger world of “colonial mediascapes” can go a long way in enabling new insights and more nuanced readings of puritan texts derived from various original sources.