The Prologue orients readers to the classic tradition of American exceptionalism based in the Pilgrims and puritans, explaining how that tradition arose and to what effect. Sketching the development of a “puritan origins” thesis from the early republic through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the prologue ends in 1990, when a recognizable shift in puritan studies gained momentum. The Prologue gives readers a sense of how American collective memory built a story of noble Pilgrims fleeing persecution and establishing religious freedom on American shores. Pilgrim anniversaries of Plymouth Rock and the Mayflower landing were traditionally meant to celebrate and venerate an exceptional story of America rooted in New England and attributed to the singular virtues and values of the puritans. Yet even when scholars, politicians, pundits, and commentators turned against the puritans and despised them for various reasons, they still wrote stories in which the puritans were held responsible for all that the United States had become. Whether in love or hatred, in both praise and condemnation, the “puritan origins” thesis guided a great deal of American puritan studies throughout the twentieth century.

The Introduction explains what we are doing when we claim to write American puritan literary history. It shows the development of that field – particularly as it was rooted in American exceptionalism and guided the construction of American literature anthologies – then explains the turn away from exceptionalism and the current state of the field. In the process we define each of the key terms in the title of this book: “American,” “puritan,” “literary,” and “history,” offering a general overview and summary of puritanism. Finally, the introduction lays out the three broader goals of the volume: (1) to introduce teachers, scholars, and new students to the complicated and nuanced tradition of puritan literature in America, set within broad historical, methodological, and geographical contexts; (2) to bring together new methodologies for, approaches to, and analyses of this literature; and (3) to suggest new directions and next steps in the field, including what the contours of such a field ought to include.

This essay challenges readings of American puritanism as a primarily inward-looking and self-contained affair, whose main significance lay in foreshadowing the rise of the United States and being the root cause of a national ideology of exceptionalism. The aim is to put New England religion and culture back into a European perspective, by demonstrating how large the Continent loomed in the puritan mind and emphasizing the significance of the many exchanges with like-minded groups on the Continent throughout the colonial period. Drawing on a growing body of revisionist scholarship, the chapter discusses what we have learned of these Continental-European connections, while offering new insights into the dialogue between American puritans and German-speaking Pietists. In doing so, it also pays attention to how these relations were often triangulated with Britain. Three aspects are treated in summary overview but always with special reference to the works of the leading Boston theologian Cotton Mather: (1) the general perception of Europe, in particular, how puritans looked at the varieties of European Protestantism and through that lens at themselves; (2) the networks and collaborations on mission, reform, and revival between New Englanders and groups on the Continent; and (3) the many theological and intellectual exchanges that took place through these networks.