A Plaine Stile

In a previous post, a number of you commented about and wondered about the possibility that Bradford (and perhaps by extension, other Puritan writers) embellished the facts he was presenting to his readers.  In particular, the episode about the arrogant sailor seems too ... contrived, too convenient for Bradford's purposes.  So perhaps this is a good opportunity for me to talk a little bit about how Puritans perceived the function of writing.

First, did Bradford embellish?  Perhaps, though it's highly unlikely he did so with full awareness that he was doing so.  It's more likely that the event he described did happen, but Bradford grabbed the story and ran with it as a cautionary tale.  He didn't create facts--he interpreted them in light of his (and other Puritans) beliefs in God's active presence in this world.

                                                                        The Bay Psalm Book - America's First Book

Second, we sometimes assume that because of the moral rigidity of the Puritans that they somehow would refuse to read anything secular or intellectually challenging.  In fact, the Puritans were extremely literate--far more literate than virtually any other group in America--and placed a great deal of value in the ability to read and write.  (The literacy rates of their children still exceed those of our children in 2009.)  The primary reason for this was simple--if they or their children could not read, then they could not read the Bible.  However, they were also generally well read, and did not shy away from reading challenging secular texts.  Cotton Mather, for example, was and is still one of the most extraordinarily well read men in our history, and a formidable intellect.

But Puritans believed that the purpose of writing was, simply, to illuminate God's presence in this world.  The writer focused entirely upon that.  Consequently they developed what they called a "plaine stile" of writing.  As the term implies, the writing lacked much of what we would regard as necessary to good writing; the writing tends to be bland, unexciting, often repetitive and personality-less--on purpose.  You see, a writer who writes with an "embellished" style calls attention to himself--and distracts the reader from focusing on God.  A writer who embellishes is an arrogant writer, a narcissistic writer, and as you can tell from Bradford, God likes to take down those who are arrogant.  A  plain style puts the writer where he belongs--in the background.  Way in the background.