In fewer than 250 words, begin a thread in which you respond to the following question: If Mary Rowlandson and Anne Bradstreet were the only two 17th-century puritans in the world and the works you’ve read the only written record of puritanism, what would you say is a defining quality of puritanism? 

Offer some original thinking.  Leave aside any textbook definitions of ‘puritan,’ and don’t bother to explore Google. Instead, based upon your own examination of these primary texts, identify one common theme that Bradstreet and Rowlandson (our two puritans) seem to share.

Support your idea with accurate, precise evidence. For both authors, point out (with careful cited paraphrase and/or accurate and cited quote) the sentences(s) where in the text you see evidence of the theme you have identified and, to the extent necessary, explain why you believe those sentences illustrate the theme you claim

read Mary Rowlandson’s “Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Rowlandson,” from the Norton Anthology of American Literature, pages 267 – 300

– read Anne Bradstreet’s poems, “To Her Father with Some Verses,” “The Flesh and the Spirit,” “The Author to Her Book,” “Before the Birth of One of Her Children,” “To My Dear and Loving Husband,” “Another [Letter to Her Husband, Absent upon Public Employment], and “”Here Follows Some Verse upon the Burning of Our House,” in the Norton, pages 218 – 250 (not inclusive”: choose the selected poems)