Lesson 1.2 · Unit 1 · RI.11-12.4, RL.11-12.5
Plain style and typology
Puritan writing looks austere and is not simple. It operates on two explicit principles, and once you know both, a plain paragraph turns out to be doing several things at once.
- The plain style was a doctrine, not a limitation, since ornament was held to draw attention to the writer rather than the truth.
- It favors short words, concrete nouns and direct syntax, and it distrusts rhetorical display.
- Typology reads earlier events as foreshadowings of later ones, so an Old Testament episode prefigures a New Testament one.
- The Puritans extended typology to themselves, reading their own crossing and settlement as a new Exodus.
- Providence means that nothing is accidental, so every event is interpretable and a burned house has a meaning.
- The journal and the sermon are the central forms, and both are documents of self-examination.
- Bradstreet, Edwards and Winthrop are the writers this course uses, and all are in the public domain.
- The habit of reading events for meaning persisted long after the theology did, which is why this unit matters to the rest of the year.
Where students lose marks: calling Puritan prose simple. Plain style is a deliberate rhetorical choice with a theological justification, and describing it as unsophisticated misses that it was argued for.
The text. John Winthrop, "A Model of Christian Charity", 1630. Public domain.
For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world.
Step one: examine the vocabulary. Consider, city, hill, eyes, people, deal, work, story, by-word. Almost every word is one syllable and concrete. Nothing here is difficult and nothing is decorative.
Step two: state what the plain style is for. The doctrine held that ornament draws attention to the preacher's skill rather than to the truth being conveyed. Simplicity is therefore a form of honesty, and the style is an argument about the speaker's relationship to his subject.
Step three: identify the typology. "A city upon a hill" is from the Sermon on the Mount. Winthrop applies a scriptural image to a colony of English settlers on a ship, which claims that their voyage is an instance of a scriptural pattern.
Step four: state what that claim does. It makes the settlement significant. A few hundred people crossing an ocean is an event; a few hundred people fulfilling a type is history. Typology converts a migration into a meaning.
Step five: notice the conditional. "If we shall deal falsely." The passage is not a boast. It is a warning that visibility works both ways, and that failure will be as public as success.
Step six: work the providential logic. If nothing is accidental, then a failed colony would not be bad luck; it would be a judgment, and it would be legible to everyone as a judgment. That is why the stakes in the sentence are reputational as well as spiritual.
Step seven: trace the phrase forward. "A city upon a hill" has been used by American politicians for four centuries, almost always as a compliment to the country. Winthrop used it as a condition and a threat, and the drift from warning to boast is itself an argument about how national self-images form.
Step eight: state what survives the theology. Few Americans now hold Winthrop's beliefs, and the habit he modeled has outlasted them: reading national events as meaningful, treating the country as watched, and understanding failure as disgrace rather than misfortune. That habit runs through every unit of this course.
Questions 1 to 5 are recall. Questions 6 to 10 ask for reasoning.
- Define the plain style and give its justification.
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Short words, concrete nouns and direct syntax, because ornament draws attention to the writer rather than the truth
- Define typology.
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Reading earlier events as foreshadowings of later ones
- What does providence mean in this context?
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That nothing is accidental, so every event is interpretable
- Where does "a city upon a hill" come from?
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The Sermon on the Mount
- What does Winthrop say will happen if they deal falsely?
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They will be made a story and a by-word through the world
- Why is calling Puritan prose "simple" a mistake?
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Because the plainness is a doctrine with a theological justification rather than a limit of skill. Ornament was held to direct attention to the preacher rather than the truth, so simplicity is a claim about the speaker's honesty and his relationship to his subject. The style was argued for, which makes it a rhetorical position rather than an absence of one. It is a doctrine with a justification, not a lack of skill
- What does typology do to a migration?
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It converts it into a meaning. A few hundred people crossing an ocean is an event; a few hundred people fulfilling a scriptural type is history with a direction. Applying the Sermon on the Mount to a shipload of English settlers claims that their voyage belongs to a pattern God established, which makes everything that follows interpretable rather than merely eventful. It converts an event into an instance of a divine pattern
- Why is the conditional in the passage important?
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"If we shall deal falsely" makes the sentence a warning rather than a boast. Visibility works both ways: a city on a hill can be seen failing as easily as succeeding. Winthrop is telling people who have not yet landed that their errors will be as public as their achievements, which is a very different speech from the one the phrase is usually quoted to support. It makes the passage a warning about visible failure, not a boast
- How does providential logic raise the stakes?
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If nothing is accidental, a failed colony cannot be bad luck; it must be a judgment, and it will be legible to everyone as one. The consequence of failure is therefore not hardship but disgrace, visible to the whole world and correctly interpreted by it. That is why the sentence ends on being made a story and a by-word rather than on any material loss. Failure becomes a legible judgment rather than misfortune
- What does the later career of "a city upon a hill" show?
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American politicians have used it for four centuries, almost always as a compliment to the country. Winthrop used it as a condition attached to a threat. The drift from warning to boast is itself evidence about how national self-images form: a phrase survives its context, keeps its prestige, and loses the clause that made it demanding. A warning became a boast, which shows how self-images form