The Puritan as Killjoy: Truth Is Stranger than Fiction

The supposition that Puritans, on both sides of the Atlantic, were party poopers and fun suckers, ashen-faced and humorless, is an image constructed by theater and novels. This caricature developed early in the 19th century and has endured to the present with rare exceptions, like the Catholic convert Orestes Brownson’s periodically coming to their defense. Like many monikers, “Puritan” began as a pejorative, was eventually embraced by its recipients, and now serves, once again, as an insult for someone who is hyperactively moralistic and censorious—the type of person you do not invite to parties. Notably, it is typically hypocritical of our own day to preachily condemn alternative, foreign ways of life for being too preachy and particular, but I digress.  Read Full Article »