title: Fourth wall

text: The metaphor suggests a relationship to the mise-en-scène behind a proscenium arch. When a scene is set indoors and three of the walls of its room are presented onstage, in what is known as a box set, the fourth of them would run along the line (technically called the proscenium) dividing the room from the auditorium. The "fourth wall", though, is a theatrical convention, rather than of set design. The actors ignore the audience, focus their attention exclusively on the dramatic world, and remain absorbed in its fiction, in a state that the theatre practitioner Konstantin Stanislavski called "public solitude" (the ability to behave as one would in private, despite, in actuality, being watched intently while so doing, or to be 'alone in public'). In this way, the fourth wall exists regardless of the presence of any actual walls in the set, the physical arrangement of the theatre building or performance space, or the actors' distance from or proximity to the audience. In practice, performers often feed off the energy of the audience in a palpable way while modulating performance around the collective response, especially in pacing action around outbursts of laughter, so that lines are not delivered inaudibly.


title: Fourth wall

text: Breaking the fourth wall is violating this performance convention, which has been adopted more generally in the drama. This can be done by either directly referring to the audience, the play as a play, or the characters' fictionality. The temporary suspension of the convention in this way draws attention to its use in the rest of the performance. This act of drawing attention to a play's performance conventions is metatheatrical. A similar effect of metareference is achieved when the performance convention of avoiding direct contact with the camera, generally used by actors in a television drama or film, is temporarily suspended. The phrase "breaking the fourth wall" is used to describe such effects in those media. Breaking the fourth wall is also possible in other media, such as video games and books.


title: Fourth wall

text: The acceptance of the transparency of the fourth wall is part of the suspension of disbelief between a work of fiction and an audience, allowing them to enjoy the fiction as though they were observing real events. Critic Vincent Canby described it in 1987 as "that invisible scrim that forever separates the audience from the stage".


title: Fourth wall

text: The fourth wall did not exist as a concept for much of dramatic history. Classical plays from Ancient Greece to the Renaissance have frequent direct addresses to the audience such as asides and soliloquies.


title: Fourth wall

text: The presence of the fourth wall is an established convention of modern realistic theatre, which has led some artists to draw direct attention to it for dramatic or comic effect when a boundary is "broken" when an actor or character addresses the audience directly. Breaking the fourth wall is common in pantomime and children's theatre where, for example, a character might ask the children for help, as when Peter Pan appeals to the audience to applaud in an effort to revive the fading Tinker Bell ("If you believe in fairies, clap your hands!"). Many of Shakespeare's plays use this technique for comic effect.


title: Fourth wall

text: One of the earliest recorded breakings of the fourth wall in serious cinema was in Mary MacLane's 1918 silent film "Men Who Have Made Love to Me", in which the enigmatic authoress – who portrays herself – interrupts the vignettes onscreen to address the audience directly.


title: Fourth wall

text: Oliver Hardy often broke the fourth wall in his films with Stan Laurel, when he would stare directly at the camera to seek sympathy from viewers. Groucho Marx spoke directly to the audience in "Animal Crackers" (1930), and "Horse Feathers" (1932), in the latter film advising them to "go out to the lobby" during Chico Marx's piano interlude. Comedy films by Mel Brooks, Monty Python, and Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker frequently broke the fourth wall, such that with these films "the fourth wall is so flimsy and so frequently shattered that it might as well not exist", according to "The A.V. Club".


title: Fourth wall

text: Woody Allen broke the fourth wall repeatedly in his movie "Annie Hall" (1977), as he explained, "because I felt many of the people in the audience had the same feelings and the same problems. I wanted to talk to them directly and confront them." His 1985 film "The Purple Rose of Cairo" features the breaking of the fourth wall as a central plot point.


title: Fourth wall

text: The fourth wall was used as an integral part of the plot structure and to demonstrate the character played by Michael Caine, in his eponymous breakout role in the 1966 film "Alfie", who frequently spoke to the audience to explain the thinking and motivation of the womanizing young man, speaking directly to the camera, narrating and justifying his actions, his words often contrasting with his actions.


title: Fourth wall

text: Jerry Lewis wrote in his 1971 book "The Total Filmmaker", "Some film-makers believe you should never have an actor look directly into the camera. They maintain it makes the audience uneasy, and interrupts the screen story. I think that is nonsense, and usually I have my actors, in a single, look direct into the camera at least once in a film, if a point is to be served." Martin and Lewis look directly at the audience in "You're Never Too Young" (1955), and Lewis and co-star Stella Stevens each look directly into the camera several times in "The Nutty Professor" (1963), and Lewis' character holds a pantomime conversation with the audience in "The Disorderly Orderly" (1964). The final scene of "The Patsy" (1964) is famous for revealing to the audience the movie as a movie, and Lewis as actor/director.


title: Fourth wall

text: In the 1986 teen film, "Ferris Bueller's Day Off", the titular character breaks the fourth wall to talk directly to the audience.


title: Fourth wall

text: Mike Myers broke the fourth wall in "The Love Guru" when he looked directly at the camera for a split-second when a Queen song came on as a reference to the famous "Wayne's World" head-banging scene. Eddie Murphy makes two brief, wordless glances at the camera in "Trading Places". Near the end of "Nobody's Fool", Tiffany Haddish breaks the fourth wall by declaring that the film is not over and then proceeding to ruin a wedding ceremony.


title: Fourth wall

text: In "The Railway Children" the entire cast breaks the fourth wall and performs a curtain call as the credits roll. The camera moves slowly along a railway track towards a train that is decked in flags, in front of which all of the cast is assembled, waving and cheering to the camera. At the start of the credit sequence, a voice can be heard shouting "Thank you, Mr. Forbes" to acknowledge producer Bryan Forbes. In the end, Bobbie Waterbury (Jenny Agutter) holds up a small slate on which "The End" is written in chalk.


title: Fourth wall

text: In "Mr. Bean's Holiday" the entire cast, together with massed extras, break the fourth wall while joining in singing "La Mer" by Charles Trenet, accompanied by a recording by the song's writer.


title: Fourth wall

text: Leonardo DiCaprio repeatedly breaks the fourth wall in the 2013 film "The Wolf of Wall Street" directed by Martin Scorsese.


title: Fourth wall

text: The movies "Deadpool" and "Deadpool 2" are specifically known for the main character Deadpool, played by Ryan Reynolds, consistently breaking the fourth wall.


title: Fourth wall

text: In Star Trek, "", the last movie depicting the original cast, ends with the cast looking and smiling at the camera, breaking the fourth wall.


title: Fourth wall

text: "Funny Games" has Paul and Peter repeatedly breaking the fourth wall by turning around and winking at the camera, talking to the audience by saying they are probably rooting for the family, addressing the film isn't at its feature runtime and smiling at the camera at the end of the film.


title: Fourth wall

text: The 2022 "Persuasion" film was criticized for its modernization take on the classic 1817 Jane Austen novel by having the main protagonist Anne Elliot (played by Dakota Johnson) constantly breaking the fourth wall by interacting with the audience.


title: Fourth wall

text: Fourth wall breakage is common in comedy-based programs, used frequently by Bugs Bunny and other characters in "Looney Tunes" and other later animated shows, as well as the live-action sketch comedy of "Monty Python's Flying Circus", which the troupe also brought to their feature films. George Burns regularly broke the fourth wall on "The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show" (1950). The Marvel television series, "", has its center character, Jennifer Walters/She-Hulk, frequently use fourth-wall breaking as part of its comedy, and on its finale episode, literally broke the fourth wall by "breaking out" of the Disney+ app, take to the real Marvel Studios, and demand changes from the robot K.E.V.I.N., an in-joke for the Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige.


title: Fourth wall

text: Another convention of breaking the fourth wall is often seen on mockumentary sitcoms, including "The Office". Mockumentary shows that break the fourth wall poke fun at the documentary genre with the intention of increasing the satiric tone of the show. Characters in "The Office" directly speak to the audience during interview sequences. Characters are removed from the rest of the group to speak and reflect on their experiences. The person behind the camera, the interviewer, is also referenced when the characters gaze and speak straight to the camera. The interviewer, however, is only indirectly spoken to and remains hidden. This technique, when used in shows with complex genres, serves to heighten the comic tone of the show while also proving that the camera itself is far from a passive onlooker.


title: Fourth wall

text: In the sitcom "How I Met Your Mother", the fourth wall gets broken by Robin Scherbatsky in the episode "Mystery vs. History".


title: Fourth wall

text: Another approach to breaking the fourth wall is through a central narrator character who is part of the show's events, but at times speaks directly to the audience. For example, Francis Urquhart in the British TV drama series "House of Cards", "To Play the King" and "The Final Cut" addresses the audience several times during each episode, giving the viewer comments on his own actions on the show. The same technique is also used, though less frequently, in the American adaptation of "House of Cards" by main character Frank Underwood.


title: Fourth wall

text: The Netflix series "A Series of Unfortunate Events", based on Daniel Handler's book series of the same name, incorporates some of the narrative elements from the books by having Lemony Snicket as a narrator character (played by Patrick Warburton) speaking directly to the television viewer that frequently breaks the fourth wall to explain various literary wordplay in a manner similar to the book's narration. Every episode of the sitcom "Saved by the Bell" breaks the fourth wall with an introduction by the character Zack Morris. Most episodes have several other fourth wall breaks. This is similar to how "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air", "Clarissa Explains It All" and "Malcolm in the Middle" use fourth wall breaks to set up stories or have characters comment on situations.


title: Fourth wall

text: Furthermore, breaking the fourth wall can also be used in meta-referencing in order to draw attention to or invite reflection about a specific in-universe issue. An example of this is in the very first episode of the final season of the show "Attack on Titan", where a newly introduced character, Falco Grice, starts to hallucinate about events that took place in the last 3 seasons. This literary device utilises self-referencing to trigger media-awareness in the recipient, used to signpost the drastic shift in perspective from the Eldian to the Marleyan side, and can be employed in all sorts of media.


title: Fourth wall

text: The use of breaking the fourth wall in television has sometimes been unintentional. In the "Doctor Who" episode "The Caves of Androzani", the character of Morgus frequently breaks the fourth wall when he is alone in his office. This was due to actor John Normington misunderstanding a stage direction. But the episode's director, Graeme Harper, felt that this helped increase dramatic tension, and decided not to reshoot the scenes.


title: Fourth wall

text: Given their interactive nature, nearly all video games break the fourth wall by asking for the player's participation. But beyond the obvious ways in which video games break the fourth wall (for example, by having User Interface (UI) elements on the screen, teaching the player controls, teaching the player how to save, etc.), there are several other ways that games have done this. These can include having the character face the direction of the player/screen, having a self-aware character that recognizes that they are in a video game, or having secret or bonus content set outside the game's narrative that can either extend the game world (such as with the use of false documents) or provide "behind the scenes" type content. Such cases typically create a video game that includes a metafiction narrative, commonly presently characters in the game incorporating knowledge they are in a video game.


title: Fourth wall

text: For example, in "Doki Doki Literature Club", one of the characters (Monika) is aware she is part of a video game, and at times, asks the player to delete game files that are the other in-game characters via their computer's operating system (an action they take outside of the game) to progress the story. The plot of the game "OneShot" revolves around the fictional universe of the game being a simulation running on the player's computer, with certain characters being aware of this fact and sometimes communicating directly with the player. In other cases of metafictional video games, the game alters the player's expectation of how the game should behave, which may make the player question if their own game system is at fault, helping to increase the immersion of the game.


title: Fourth wall

text: But since video games are inherently much more interactive than traditional films and literature, defining what truly breaks the fourth wall in the video game medium becomes difficult. Steven Conway, writing for "Gamasutra", suggests that in video games, many purported examples of breaking the fourth wall are actually better understood as "relocations" of the fourth wall or expansions of the "magic circle" (the fictional game world) to encompass the player. This is in contrast to traditional fourth wall breaks, which break the audience's illusion or suspension of disbelief, by acknowledging them directly. Conway argues that this expansion of the magic circle in video games actually serves to more fully immerse a player into the fictional world rather than take the viewer out of the fictional world, as is more common in traditional fourth wall breaks. An example of this expansion of the magic circle can be found in the game "", in which the player receives an in-game email at their real-life email address and must visit out-of-game websites to solve some of the puzzles in the game. Other games may expand the magic circle to include the game's hardware. For example, "X-Men" for the Mega Drive/Genesis requires players to reset their game console at a certain point to reset the X-Men's in-game Hazard Room, while "Metal Gear Solid" asks the player to put the DualShock controller on their neck to simulate a back massage being given in-game.


title: Fourth wall

text: Other examples include the idle animation of Sonic the Hedgehog in his games where the on-screen character would look to the player and tap his foot impatiently if left alone for a while, and one level of "Max Payne" has the eponymous character come to the realization he and other characters are in a video game and narrates what the player sees as part of the UI. "Eternal Darkness", which included a sanity meter, would simulate various common computer glitches to the player as the sanity meter drained, including the Blue Screen of Death. "The Stanley Parable" is also a well-known example of this, as the narrator from the game constantly tries to reason with the player, even going so far as to beg the player to switch off the game at one point.


title: Fourth wall

text: The method of breaking the fourth wall in literature is a metalepsis (the transgression of narrative levels), which is a technique often used in metafiction. The metafiction genre occurs when a character within a literary work acknowledges the reality that they are in fact a fictitious being. The use of the fourth wall in literature can be traced back as far as "The Canterbury Tales" and "Don Quixote". "Northanger Abbey" is a late modern era example. However, it was popularized in the early 20th century during the Post-Modern literary movement. Artists like Virginia Woolf in "To the Lighthouse" and Kurt Vonnegut in "Breakfast of Champions" used the genre to question the accepted knowledge and sources of the culture. The use of metafiction or breaking the fourth wall in literature varies from that on stage in that the experience is not communal but personal to the reader and develops a self-consciousness within the character/reader relationship that works to build trust and expand thought. This does not involve an acknowledgment of a character's fictive nature. Breaking the fourth wall in literature is not always metafiction. Modern examples of breaking the fourth wall include Ada Palmer's "Terra Ignota", and William Goldman's "The Princess Bride". Sorj Chalandon wrote a novel called "The 4th wall" of the setting-up of a theatrical performance of Antigone in Beirut, while the civil war is raging.


title: 2019–20 Premier League

text: The 2019–20 Premier League was the 28th season of the Premier League, the top English professional football league, since its establishment in 1992, and the 121st season of top-flight English football overall. The season started on 9 August 2019 and concluded on 26 July 2020. Manchester City were the defending champions for the second successive year, after picking up the domestic treble the previous season. Liverpool won their first league title since 1990, the club's first of the Premier League era and nineteenth overall.


title: 2019–20 Premier League

text: Over the season, Liverpool set a number of English top-flight records including the earliest title win (with seven games to spare), the biggest points lead at any time (25), and the most consecutive home wins (24, of which 7 were carried over from the previous season).


title: 2019–20 Premier League

text: The season was halted for over three months, following a decision on 13 March 2020 by the Premier League to suspend the league after a number of players and other club staff became ill due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The initial suspension, until 4 April, was then extended to mid-June. The season recommenced with two matches on 17 June and a full round of matches played over the weekend of 19–22 June.


title: 2019–20 Premier League

text: In 2019–20, the video assistant referee (VAR) review system was introduced. Changes to the laws affecting backpasses, penalties, handballs and substitutions were also introduced in 2019–20.


title: 2019–20 Premier League

text: The Premier League season marked the start of a new three-year TV deal. One key change was that eight matches were shown on television at 19:45 on Saturdays across the season, broadcast by Sky Sports. Further, Amazon broadcast two rounds of fixtures in December, including the Merseyside derby, marking the first time an entire round of live matches had been broadcast domestically.


title: 2019–20 Premier League

text: It was the first Premier League season to have a mid-season break in February. Three games of a normal round of ten were played on the weekend 8–9 February 2020, six games on the following weekend 14–17 February and the tenth game, Manchester City versus West Ham United, was rescheduled from 9 February to 19 February due to Storm Ciara. Games played on the same day had separate time slots such that the games did not overlap.


title: 2019–20 Premier League

text: With Manchester City and Liverpool achieving 98 and 97 points respectively in the 2018–19 season, many expected another close race for the title. Liverpool started the season in strong form with eight consecutive wins, while City suffered a shock defeat to newly promoted Norwich City. Liverpool's 3–1 win over City at Anfield in November opened up an 8-point lead at the top of the table and they maintained their lead for the remainder of the season.


title: 2019–20 Premier League

text: On 25 June 2020, Manchester City lost 2–1 to Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, mathematically confirming Liverpool as champions and marking their first league title in 30 years, and their first of the Premier League era.


title: 2019–20 Premier League

text: Upon winning the league, Liverpool claimed the unusual achievement of winning the Premier League earlier than any other team by games played (with seven games remaining) and later than any other team by date (the only team to clinch the title in the month of June).


title: 2019–20 Premier League

text: On 25 October 2019, Leicester City broke the Premier League record – as well as the all-time English top-flight record – for the largest away league win and equalled the biggest ever Premier League win when they defeated Southampton 9–0 at St Mary's Stadium.


title: 2019–20 Premier League

text: During the season, Liverpool broke or tied several Premier League all-time records. They achieved a record-equalling 18 consecutive wins before being defeated by Watford on 29 February. They also set records of 24 consecutive home wins, and a 25-point lead in the table at any time.


title: 2019–20 Premier League

text: On 12 January 2020, in a 6–1 victory over Aston Villa, Manchester City's Sergio Agüero broke Thierry Henry's Premier League record for most goals scored by an overseas player. In the same match, he also broke the record for most hat-tricks scored by a single player (12), previously held by Alan Shearer.


title: 2019–20 Premier League

text: As a gesture of solidarity following the death of George Floyd, players' names on the back of their shirts were replaced with 'Black Lives Matter' for the first 12 matches of the restarted season as well as replacing the Premier League badge for the BLM's for the rest of the season. The Premier League also gave their support for any player who chooses to "take a knee" before or during matches. In addition, the NHS tribute badge was also used at all kits for the remainder of the season.


title: 2019–20 Premier League

text: On 11 July 2020, Norwich City became the first team to be relegated to the Championship after a 4–0 defeat at home to West Ham United with three games remaining. On 26 July 2020, Bournemouth were the second team to be relegated to the Championship on the final day of the season, despite winning 3–1 away to Everton. Watford were the final team to be relegated to the Championship after losing 3–2 away to Arsenal on the same day. Both of these results were coupled with Aston Villa's 1–1 draw against West Ham United, ensuring Aston Villa safety in the Premier League for another season. Coincidentally, the three relegated teams were the same teams promoted to the Premier League for the 2015–16 season.


title: 2019–20 Premier League

text: From March 2020, the season was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. On 10 March, the match between Manchester City and Arsenal, due to be played the next day after being rescheduled due to City's participation in the 2020 EFL Cup Final, was postponed. A number of Arsenal players had made close contact with Olympiacos owner Evangelos Marinakis, who had tested positive for infection with the coronavirus, when the two teams had met in the Europa League 13 days earlier. It is the first football season in England to be halted since the 1939–40 season was abandoned after only three games following the outbreak of the Second World War.


title: 2019–20 Premier League

text: On 12 March, it was revealed that three Leicester City players were self-isolating. Manchester City announced that their defender Benjamin Mendy was also self-isolating, after a family member displayed symptoms of the virus. Later in the evening, it was then confirmed that Arsenal head coach Mikel Arteta had tested positive for coronavirus. As a result of Arteta's positive test, the match between Brighton & Hove Albion and Arsenal, scheduled for 14 March at the Amex, was postponed. On 13 March, Chelsea announced that their winger Callum Hudson-Odoi had tested positive for coronavirus.


title: 2019–20 Premier League

text: On 13 March, following an emergency meeting between the Premier League, The Football Association (FA), the English Football League and the FA Women's Super League, it was unanimously decided to suspend professional football in England until at least 4 April 2020. On 19 March, the suspension was extended to at least 30 April 2020. At the same time the FA agreed to extend the season indefinitely, past the scheduled end date of 1 June. In April 2020, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Matt Hancock, called on Premier League players to take a pay cut during the pandemic. The PFA rejected the call as they felt that a cut for all players would impact the Exchequer with a loss of income tax revenue. Several clubs, including Watford, Southampton and West Ham United, all agreed to defer their wages. Later in April, the Premier League produced a plan, nicknamed "Project Restart", aimed at restarting the league and playing all 92 remaining matches over a six-week period at approved, neutral stadiums. Watford, Aston Villa and Brighton, all near the bottom of the table, were of the opinion that it would be unfair to play the games in such different conditions when at risk of relegation but would be more in favour if the threat of relegation was removed. From 19 May 2020, players were allowed to return to group training in preparation for restarting the league. They were permitted to be in groups of no more than five with all training sessions lasting no longer than 75 minutes for each player. Social distancing rules must be adhered to during the sessions.


title: 2019–20 Premier League

text: On 17 and 18 May, a total of 748 players and staff were tested for COVID-19. Six tests proved positive including Adrian Mariappa of Watford and Burnley assistant manager, Ian Woan.


title: 2019–20 Premier League

text: A number of players, including Manchester City's Raheem Sterling and Sergio Agüero and Aaron Cresswell of West Ham United, voiced concerns relating to the safety of restarting the campaign. Danny Rose of Newcastle United called the decision to restart "a joke". Troy Deeney of Watford said he would not return to training because of fear for his family's health. N'Golo Kanté of Chelsea also missed training with safety concerns. On 27 May, the clubs voted unanimously to resume contact training. Aston Villa's Tyrone Mings said the players had not been consulted regarding restarting the league and that the restart was "financially driven".


title: 2019–20 Premier League

text: On 28 May, clubs agreed that the season would restart on 17 June, with the two games in hand of Manchester City vs Arsenal and Aston Villa vs Sheffield United, with the first full round of fixtures since March to be played on the weekend of 19–21 June, with all matches played behind closed doors. A plan was announced for all remaining matches to be televised, and to widen the availability of domestic broadcasts: for the first time, the BBC gained rights to broadcast four live matches on free-to-air television, while Sky announced plans to carry 25 matches on its free-to-air channel Pick. Amazon were allotted four matches. and announced it would provide a means of streaming them for free without an Amazon Prime subscription; on 18 June it was announced that these matches would be carried on its video game live streaming service Twitch.


title: 2019–20 Premier League

text: On 4 June, the Premier League announced that teams would be allowed to name nine substitutes per match, instead of the usual seven, and that teams could use five substitutes per match instead of three.


title: 2019–20 Premier League

text: Aston Villa vs. Sheffield United and Manchester City vs. Arsenal on 17 June were the first games played after the pandemic enforced break.


title: 2019–20 Premier League

text: Financial services company Deloitte estimated that Premier League clubs would face a £1 billion loss of revenue for the 2019–20 season, £500 million being accounted for in rebates to broadcasters and loss of matchday revenue.


title: 2019–20 Premier League

text: Further tests for the virus were carried out on 11 and 12 June. Two unnamed people provided a positive result including one player from Norwich City who would be required to self-isolate thereby missing the first fixture of the restarted season. Following these tests there had been 16 positive results from 8,687 tests.


title: 2019–20 Premier League

text: Before the restart of games the Premier League produced a set of guidelines to be followed at all games. They stipulated that all matches must be played behind closed doors, with the number of key people allowed inside the stadium limited to 300. All stadiums are divided into three zones — red (includes pitch and technical areas), amber (stands) and green (stand concourses) — and there are restrictions on who is allowed to enter each. There is staggered entry on to the pitch for players and staff and no handshakes are allowed before kick-off. Deep cleaning of corner flags, goalposts, substitution boards and match balls takes place before and after each fixture as standard. Extra disinfection, such as of the substitution board after it is used, is likely during matches and at half-time. Additional measures include that players and coaching staff must observe social distancing rules when travelling to and from games, and post-match broadcast interviews must take place pitchside with press conferences conducted virtually.


title: 2019–20 Premier League

text: Twenty teams competed in the league – the top seventeen teams from the previous season and the three teams promoted from the Championship. The promoted teams were Norwich City, Sheffield United and Aston Villa. Norwich City and Aston Villa returned to the top flight after absences of three years, while Sheffield United returned after a twelve-year absence. They replaced Cardiff City, Fulham (both teams relegated after one season back in the top flight) and Huddersfield Town (relegated after two years in the top flight). Cardiff City's relegation means that this season was the first without a side from Wales since the 2010–11 season.


title: Golden Age of Porn

text: The term "Golden Age of Porn", or "porno chic", refers to a 15-year period (1969–1984) in commercial American pornography, in which sexually explicit films experienced positive attention from mainstream cinemas, movie critics, and the general public. This American period, which had subsequently spread internationally, and that began "before" the legalization of pornography in Denmark on July 1, 1969, started on June 12, 1969, with the theatrical release of the film "Blue Movie" directed by Andy Warhol, and, somewhat later, with the release of the 1970 film "Mona" produced by Bill Osco. These films were the first adult erotic films depicting explicit sex to receive wide theatrical release in the United States. Both influenced the making of films such as 1972's "Deep Throat" starring Linda Lovelace and directed by Gerard Damiano, "Behind the Green Door" starring Marilyn Chambers and directed by the Mitchell brothers, 1973's "The Devil in Miss Jones" also by Damiano, and 1976's "The Opening of Misty Beethoven" by Radley Metzger. According to Warhol, "Blue Movie" was a major influence in the making of "Last Tango in Paris", an internationally controversial erotic drama film, starring Marlon Brando, and released a few years after "Blue Movie" was shown in theaters.


title: Golden Age of Porn

text: Following mentions by Johnny Carson on his popular "Tonight Show" and Bob Hope on TV as well, "Deep Throat" achieved major box-office success, despite being rudimentary by mainstream standards. In 1973, the more accomplished, but still low-budget, film "The Devil in Miss Jones" was the seventh most successful film of the year, and was well received by major media, including a favorable review by film critic Roger Ebert. The phenomenon of porn being publicly discussed by celebrities, and taken seriously by critics, a development referred to, by Ralph Blumenthal of "The New York Times", as "porno chic", began for the first time in modern American culture. It became obvious that box-office returns of very low-budget adult erotic films could fund further advances in the technical and production values of porn, making it extremely competitive with Hollywood films. There was concern that, left unchecked, the vast profitability of such films would lead to Hollywood being influenced by pornography.


title: Golden Age of Porn

text: Prior to this, thousands of U.S. state and municipal anti-obscenity laws and ordinances held that participating in the creation, distribution, or consumption of obscene films constituted criminal action. Multi-jurisdictional interpretations of obscenity made such films susceptible to prosecution and criminal liability for obscenity, thereby restricting their distribution and profit potential. Freedom in creative license, higher movie budgets and payouts, and a "Hollywood mindset" all contributed to this period.


title: Golden Age of Porn

text: However, with the increasing availability of videocassette recorders for private viewing in the 1980s, video supplanted film as the preferred distribution medium for pornography, which quickly reverted to being low-budget and openly gratuitous, ending this "Golden Age".


title: Golden Age of Porn

text: Pornographic films were produced in the early 20th century as "stag" movies, intended to be viewed at male gatherings or in brothels. In the United States, social disapproval was so great that men in them sometimes attempted to conceal their face by subterfuge, such as a false mustache (used in "A Free Ride") or even being masked. Very few people were ever identified as appearing in such films; and performers were often presumed to have been prostitutes or criminals. Vincent Drucci is said to have performed in a pornographic film made in 1924. Candy Barr, who appeared in the 1950s "Smart Alec", was virtually unique among those appearing in stag films, having attained a degree of celebrity through her participation.


title: Golden Age of Porn

text: In the US, during the late 1960s, there was regular semi-underground production of pornographic films on a modest scale. After answering New York City newspaper advertisements for nude models, Eric Edwards and Jamie Gillis, among others, appeared in these films, which were silent black and white 'loops' of low quality, often intended for peep booth viewing in the proliferation of adult video arcades around Times Square. The product of the New York City porn industry was distributed nationwide by underworld figure Robert DiBernardo, who commissioned the production of much of the so-called 'Golden Age' era films made in New York City. Although not the first adult film to obtain a wide theatrical release in the US, none had achieved a mass audience, and changed public attitude toward pornography, as "Deep Throat" did.


title: Golden Age of Porn

text: "Blue Movie" by Andy Warhol, released in June 1969, and, more freely, "Mona", by Bill Osco, released afterwards in August 1970, were the first films depicting explicit sex to receive wide theatrical distribution in the United States. "Blue Movie" was reviewed in "Variety." Although "Blue Movie" involved sexual intercourse, the film, starring Viva and Louis Waldon, included substantial dialogue about the Vietnam War and various mundane tasks. In comparison, the film "Mona" differed from "Blue Movie" by presenting more of a story plot: Mona (played by Fifi Watson) had promised her mother that she would remain a virgin until her impending marriage. Nonetheless, "Blue Movie", besides being a seminal film in the 'Golden Age of Porn', was a major influence, according to Warhol, in the making of "Last Tango in Paris" (1972), an internationally controversial erotic drama film, starring Marlon Brando, and released a few years after "Blue Movie" was made.


title: Golden Age of Porn

text: Also around this time, in June 1970, the 55th Street Playhouse began showing "Censorship in Denmark: A New Approach", a film documentary study of pornography, directed by Alex de Renzy. According to Vincent Canby, a New York Times film reviewer, the narrator of the documentary noted that “pornography is more stimulating and cheaper than hormone injections” and "stresses the fact that since the legalization of pornography in Denmark, sex crimes have decreased." Nonetheless, on September 30, 1970, Assistant District Attorney, Richard Beckler, had the theater manager, Chung Louis, arrested on an obscenity charge, and the film seized as appealing to a prurient interest in sex. The presiding judge, Jack Rosenberg, stated, “[The film] is patently offensive to most Americans because it affronts contemporary community standards relating to the description or representation of sexual matters.”


title: Golden Age of Porn

text: Nevertheless, afterwards, in October 1970, the "History of the Blue Movie", another film documentary study of pornography directed by Alex de Renzy, was released and featured a compilation of early blue movie shorts dating from 1915 to 1970. Film critic Roger Ebert reviewed the film, rated it two-stars (of four), and noted that the narrator tells us "solemnly about the comic artistry of early stag movies".


title: Golden Age of Porn

text: In December 1971, "Boys in the Sand" was released and opened in theaters across the United States and around the world, and reviewed by "Variety" magazine. Featuring explicit all-male sex scenes, the film's title is a parodic reference to the gay-themed 1968 play by Mart Crowley, and the 1970 film adaptation "The Boys in the Band".


title: Golden Age of Porn

text: The 'Golden Age of Porn' continued in 1972 with "Deep Throat". It officially premiered at the World Theater in New York City on June 12, 1972, and was advertised in "The New York Times" under the bowdlerized title "Throat". After Johnny Carson talked about the film on his nationally top-rated TV show and Bob Hope, as well, mentioned it on TV, "Deep Throat" became very profitable and a box-office success, according to one of the figures behind the film. In its second year of release, "Deep Throat" just missed "Variety's" top 10. However, by then, it was often being shown in a double bill with the most successful of the top three adult erotic films released in the 1972–1973 era, "The Devil in Miss Jones", which easily outperformed "Deep Throat", while leaving "Behind the Green Door" trailing in third place.


title: Golden Age of Porn

text: The 1973 film "The Devil in Miss Jones" was ranked number seven in the "Variety " list of the top ten highest-grossing pictures of 1973, despite lacking the wide release and professional marketing of Hollywood and having been virtually banned across the country for half the year (see Miller v. California, below). Some critics have described the film as, along with "Deep Throat", one of the "two best erotic motion pictures ever made". William Friedkin called "The Devil in Miss Jones" a "great film", partly because it was one of the few adult erotic films with a proper storyline. Roger Ebert referred to "The Devil in Miss Jones" as the "best" of the genre he had seen and gave it three-stars (of four). Ebert also suggested the film's box office receipts were inflated as a way of laundering the profits from illegal activities, although such a method would have required organised crime to be paying taxes on their illegally obtained income.


title: Golden Age of Porn

text: "The Devil in Miss Jones" was one of the first films to be inducted into the XRCO Hall of Fame. The sound-recording, cinematography, and story-line of "The Devil in Miss Jones" were of a considerably higher quality than any previous porn film. The lead, Georgina Spelvin, who had been in the original Broadway run of "The Pajama Game", combined vigorous sex with an acting performance some thought as convincing as anything to be seen in a good mainstream production. She had been hired as a caterer, but Gerard Damiano, the film director, was impressed with her reading of Miss Jones's dialogue, while auditioning an actor for the non-sex role of 'Abaca'. According to "Variety's " review, "With "The Devil in Miss Jones", the hard-core porno feature approaches an art form, one that critics may have a tough time ignoring in the future". The review also described the plot as comparable to Jean-Paul Sartre's play "No Exit", and went on to describe the opening scene as, "a sequence so effective it would stand out in any legit theatrical feature." It finished by stating, "Booking a film of this technical quality into a standard sex house is tantamount to throwing it on the trash heap of most current hard-core fare."


title: Golden Age of Porn

text: An influential five-page article in "The New York Times Magazine" in 1973 described the phenomenon of porn being publicly discussed by celebrities, and taken seriously by critics, a development referred to, by Ralph Blumenthal of "The New York Times", as "porno chic". Some expressed the opinion that pornographic films would continue to extend their access to US theaters, and the mainstream film industry would gravitate toward the influence of porn.


title: Golden Age of Porn

text: Supreme Court's 1973 "Miller v. California" decision redefined obscenity from "utterly without socially redeeming value" to lacks "serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value". Crucially, it made 'contemporary community standards' the criterion, holding that obscenity was not protected by the First Amendment; the ruling gave leeway to local judges to seize and destroy prints of films adjudged to violate local community standards. The Miller decision obstructed porn distribution.


title: Golden Age of Porn

text: "The Devil in Miss Jones", as well as "Deep Throat" and "Behind the Green Door", were prosecuted successfully during the latter half of 1973; the Supreme Court's Miller decision closed much of America to the exhibition of adult erotic films, and often led to it being banned outright. Porn films would not feature as prominently in the mainstream movie business as they did in the Golden Age, until the emergence of the internet in the 1990s.


title: Golden Age of Porn

text: In the aftermath of "Miller v. California" (1973), with the consequence of fragmenting distribution in the American film market and putting mass box office returns beyond the reach of pornographic films, the brief commercial foray into the production of pornographic films with higher artistic and cinematic production values that occurred between 1972 and 1973 was not sustained. With their relatively modest financial means, a predicted move of organized crime into Hollywood failed to materialize. Pornographic films continued to be a highly profitable business, and thrived throughout the rest of the 1970s, leading to the concept of porn "stars" gaining currency. Ostracism of porn performers meant they almost invariably used pseudonyms. Being outed as having appeared in porn usually put an end to an actor's hope of a mainstream career. An indication of the returns still possible was that a 1976 release, "Alice in Wonderland: An X-Rated Musical Comedy", favorably reviewed by film critic Roger Ebert in 1976, reportedly grossed over $90 million globally. Some historians assess "The Opening of Misty Beethoven", based on the play "Pygmalion" by George Bernard Shaw (and its derivative, "My Fair Lady"), and directed by Radley Metzger, as attaining a mainstream level in storyline and sets. Author Toni Bentley called the film the "crown jewel" of the Golden Age.


title: Golden Age of Porn

text: In general, after 1973, adult erotic films emulated mainstream filmmaking storylines and conventions, merely to frame the depictions of sexual activity to prepare an 'artistic merit' defense against possible obscenity charges. The adult film industry remained stuck at the level of 'one day wonders', finished by participants hired for only a single day. The ponderous technology of the time meant filming a simple scene would often take hours due to the need for the camera to be laboriously set up for each shot. Repeated sustained performances might be required on cue at any time over the course of a day, which was an issue for men without the recourse to modern Viagra-type drugs. Production was concentrated in New York City where organized crime was widely believed to have control over all aspects of the business, and to prevent entry of competitors. Although their budgets were usually very low, a subcultural level of appreciation exists for films of this era, which were produced by a core group of around thirty performers, some of whom had other jobs. Several were actors who could handle dialogue when required. However, some participants scoffed at the idea that what they did qualified as "acting". By the early 1980s, the rise of home video had led to the end of the era when people went to movie theaters to see sex shot on 35mm film with production values, ultimately culminating with the rise of the internet in the 1990s and beyond.


title: Golden Age of Porn

text: The 'Golden Age' was a period of interactions between pornography and the contemporaneous second wave of feminism. Radical and cultural feminists, along with religious and conservative groups, attacked pornography, while other feminists were pro-pornography, such as Camille Paglia, who defined what came to be known as sex-positive feminism in her work "Sexual Personae". Paglia and other sex-positive or pro-pornography feminists accepted porn as part of the sexual revolution with its libertarian sexual themes, such as exploring bisexuality and swinging, free from government interference. The endorsement of female critics was essential for the credibility of the brief era of "porno chic".


title: Golden Age of Porn

text: Major pornographic film actors of the first part of the 'Golden Age', the "porno chic" era, included:


title: Golden Age of Porn

text: At the time of the maturation of the second wave, movies increasingly were being shot on video for home release.


title: Golden Age of Porn

text: As their popularity rose, so did their control of their careers. John Holmes became the first recurring porn character in the "Johnny Wadd" film series directed by Bob Chinn. Lisa De Leeuw was one of the first to sign an exclusive contract with a major adult production company, Vivid Video, and Marilyn Chambers worked in mainstream movies, being one of the first of a rare number of crossover porn actors.


title: Golden Age of Porn

text: With the rise of video, the dominant pornographic film studios of the Second Wave period were VCA Pictures and Caballero Home Video.


title: Horror fiction

text: Horror is a genre of fiction which is intended to frighten, scare, or disgust. Horror is often divided into the sub-genres of psychological horror and supernatural horror, which is in the realm of speculative fiction. Literary historian J. A. Cuddon, in 1984, defined the horror story as "a piece of fiction in prose of variable length... which shocks, or even frightens the reader, or perhaps induces a feeling of repulsion or loathing". Horror intends to create an eerie and frightening atmosphere for the reader. Often the central menace of a work of horror fiction can be interpreted as a metaphor for larger fears of a society.


title: Horror fiction

text: Prevalent elements of the genre include ghosts, demons, vampires, werewolves, ghouls, the Devil, witches, monsters, extraterrestrials, dystopian and post-apocalyptic worlds, serial killers, cannibalism, cults, dark magic, satanism, the macabre, gore and torture.


title: Horror fiction

text: The horror genre has ancient origins, with roots in folklore and religious traditions focusing on death, the afterlife, evil, the demonic and the principle of the thing embodied in the person. These manifested in stories of beings such as demons, witches, vampires, werewolves and ghosts. European horror-fiction became established through works of the Ancient Greeks and Ancient Romans. Mary Shelley's well-known 1818 novel about Frankenstein was greatly influenced by the story of Hippolytus, whom Asclepius revives from death. Euripides wrote plays based on the story, "Hippolytos Kalyptomenos" and "Hippolytus". In Plutarch's "The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans" in the account of Cimon, the author describes the spirit of a murderer, Damon, who himself was murdered in a bathhouse in Chaeronea.


title: Horror fiction

text: Pliny the Younger (61 to 113) tells the tale of Athenodorus Cananites, who bought a haunted house in Athens. Athenodorus was cautious since the house seemed inexpensive. While writing a book on philosophy, he was visited by a ghostly figure bound in chains. The figure disappeared in the courtyard; the following day, the magistrates dug in the courtyard and found an unmarked grave.


title: Horror fiction

text: Werewolf stories were popular in medieval French literature. One of Marie de France's twelve lais is a werewolf story titled "Bisclavret".


title: Horror fiction

text: The Countess Yolande commissioned a werewolf story titled "Guillaume de Palerme". Anonymous writers penned two werewolf stories, "Biclarel" and "Melion".


title: Horror fiction

text: Much horror fiction derives from the cruellest personages of the 15th century. Dracula can be traced to the Prince of Wallachia Vlad III, whose alleged war crimes were published in German pamphlets. A 1499 pamphlet was published by Markus Ayrer, which is most notable for its woodcut imagery. The alleged serial-killer sprees of Gilles de Rais have been seen as the inspiration for "Bluebeard". The motif of the vampiress is most notably derived from the real-life noblewoman and murderess, Elizabeth Bathory, and helped usher in the emergence of horror fiction in the 18th century, such as through László Turóczi's 1729 book "Tragica Historia".


title: Horror fiction

text: The 18th century saw the gradual development of Romanticism and the Gothic horror genre. It drew on the written and material heritage of the Late Middle Ages, finding its form with Horace Walpole's seminal and controversial 1764 novel, "The Castle of Otranto". In fact, the first edition was published disguised as an actual medieval romance from Italy, discovered and republished by a fictitious translator. Once revealed as modern, many found it anachronistic, reactionary, or simply in poor taste but it proved immediately popular. "Otranto" inspired "Vathek" (1786) by William Beckford, "A Sicilian Romance" (1790), "The Mysteries of Udolpho" (1794) and "The Italian" (1796) by Ann Radcliffe and "The Monk" (1797) by Matthew Lewis. A significant amount of horror fiction of this era was written by women and marketed towards a female audience, a typical scenario of the novels being a resourceful female menaced in a gloomy castle.


title: Horror fiction

text: The Gothic tradition blossomed into the genre that modern readers today call horror literature in the 19th century. Influential works and characters that continue resonating in fiction and film today saw their genesis in the Brothers Grimm's "Hänsel und Gretel" (1812), Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" (1818), John Polidori's "The Vampyre" (1819), Charles Maturin's "Melmoth the Wanderer" (1820), Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" (1820), Jane C. Loudon's "" (1827), Victor Hugo's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" (1831), Thomas Peckett Prest's "Varney the Vampire" (1847), the works of Edgar Allan Poe, the works of Sheridan Le Fanu, Robert Louis Stevenson's "Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" (1886), Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (1890), H. G. Wells' "The Invisible Man" (1897), and Bram Stoker's "Dracula" (1897). Each of these works created an enduring icon of horror seen in later re-imaginings on the page, stage and screen.


title: Horror fiction

text: A proliferation of cheap periodicals around turn of the century led to a boom in horror writing. For example, Gaston Leroux serialized his "Le Fantôme de l'Opéra" before it became a novel in 1910. One writer who specialized in horror fiction for mainstream pulps, such as "All-Story Magazine," was Tod Robbins, whose fiction deals with themes of madness and cruelty. In Russia, the writer Alexander Belyaev popularized these themes in his story "Professor Dowell's Head" (1925), in which a mad doctor performs experimental head transplants and reanimations on bodies stolen from the morgue, and which was first published as a magazine serial before being turned into a novel. Later, specialist publications emerged to give horror writers an outlet, prominent among them was "Weird Tales" and "Unknown" "Worlds".


title: Horror fiction

text: Influential horror writers of the early 20th century made inroads in these mediums. Particularly, the venerated horror author H. P. Lovecraft, and his enduring Cthulhu Mythos transformed and popularized the genre of cosmic horror, and M. R. James is credited with redefining the ghost story in that era.


title: Horror fiction

text: The serial murderer became a recurring theme. Yellow journalism and sensationalism of various murderers, such as Jack the Ripper, and lesser so, Carl Panzram, Fritz Haarman, and Albert Fish, all perpetuated this phenomenon. The trend continued in the postwar era, partly renewed after the murders committed by Ed Gein. In 1959, Robert Bloch, inspired by the murders, wrote "Psycho". The crimes committed in 1969 by the Manson Family influenced the slasher theme in horror fiction of the 1970s. In 1981, Thomas Harris wrote "Red Dragon", introducing Dr. Hannibal Lecter. In 1988, the sequel to that novel, "The Silence of the Lambs", was published.


title: Horror fiction

text: Early cinema was inspired by many aspects of horror literature, and started a strong tradition of horror films and subgenres that continues to this day. Up until the graphic depictions of violence and gore on the screen commonly associated with 1960s and 1970s slasher films and splatter films, comic books such as those published by EC Comics (most notably "Tales From The Crypt") in the 1950s satisfied readers' quests for horror imagery that the silver screen could not provide. This imagery made these comics controversial, and as a consequence, they were frequently censored.


title: Horror fiction

text: The modern zombie tale dealing with the motif of the living dead harks back to works including H. P. Lovecraft's stories "Cool Air" (1925), "In The Vault" (1926), and "The Outsider" (1926), and Dennis Wheatley's "Strange Conflict" (1941). Richard Matheson's novel "I Am Legend" (1954) influenced an entire genre of apocalyptic zombie fiction emblematized by the films of George A. Romero.


title: Horror fiction

text: In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the enormous commercial success of three books - "Rosemary's Baby" (1967) by Ira Levin, "The Exorcist" by William Peter Blatty, and "The Other" by Thomas Tryon - encouraged publishers to begin releasing numerous other horror novels, thus creating a "horror boom".


title: Horror fiction

text: One of the best-known late-20th century horror writers is Stephen King, known for "Carrie", "The Shining", "It", "Misery" and several dozen other novels and about 200 short stories. Beginning in the 1970s, King's stories have attracted a large audience, for which he was awarded by the U.S. National Book Foundation in 2003. Other popular horror authors of the period included Anne Rice, Brian Lumley, Graham Masterton, Richard Laymon, James Herbert, Dean Koontz, Clive Barker, Ramsey Campbell, and Peter Straub.


title: Horror fiction

text: Best-selling book series of contemporary times exist in genres related to horror fiction, such as the werewolf fiction urban fantasy Kitty Norville books by Carrie Vaughn (2005 onward). Horror elements continue to expand outside the genre. The alternate history of more traditional historical horror in Dan Simmons's 2007 novel "The Terror" sits on bookstore shelves next to genre mash ups such as "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" (2009), and historical fantasy and horror comics such as "Hellblazer" (1993 onward) and Mike Mignola's Hellboy (1993 onward). Horror also serves as one of the central genres in more complex modern works such as Mark Z. Danielewski's "House of Leaves" (2000), a finalist for the National Book Award. There are many horror novels for teens, such as "The Monstrumologist" by Rick Yancey (2009). Additionally, many movies, particularly animated ones, use a horror aesthetic. These are what can be collectively referred to as "children's horror". Although it's unknown for sure why children enjoy these movies (as it seems counter-intuitive), it is theorized that it is the grotesque monsters that fascinate kids. Tangential to this, the internalized impact of horror television programs and films on children is rather under-researched, especially when compared to the research done on the similar subject of violence in TV and film's impact on the young mind. What little research there is tends to be inconclusive on the impact that viewing such media has.


title: Horror fiction

text: One defining trait of the horror genre is that it provokes an emotional, psychological, or physical response within readers that causes them to react with fear. One of H. P. Lovecraft's most famous quotes about the genre is that: "The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown." the first sentence from his seminal essay, "Supernatural Horror in Literature". Science fiction historian Darrell Schweitzer has stated, "In the simplest sense, a horror story is one that scares us" and "the true horror story requires a sense of evil, not in necessarily in a theological sense; but the menaces must be truly menacing, life-destroying, and antithetical to happiness."


title: Horror fiction

text: In her essay "Elements of Aversion", Elizabeth Barrette articulates the need by some for horror tales in a modern world:


title: Horror fiction

text: In a sense similar to the reason a person seeks out the controlled thrill of a roller coaster, readers in the modern era seek out feelings of horror and terror to feel a sense of excitement. However, Barrette adds that horror fiction is one of the few mediums where readers seek out a form of art that forces themselves to confront ideas and images they "might rather ignore to challenge preconceptions of all kinds."


title: Horror fiction

text: One can see the confrontation of ideas that readers and characters would "rather ignore" throughout literature in famous moments such as Hamlet's musings about the skull of Yorick, its implications of the mortality of humanity, and the gruesome end that bodies inevitably come to. In horror fiction, the confrontation with the gruesome is often a metaphor for the problems facing the current generation of the author.


title: Horror fiction

text: There are many theories as to why people enjoy being scared. For example, "people who like horror films are more likely to score highly for openness to experience, a personality trait linked to intellect and imagination."


title: Horror fiction

text: It is a now commonly accepted viewpoint that the horror elements of Dracula's portrayal of vampirism are metaphors for sexuality in a repressed Victorian era. But this is merely one of many interpretations of the metaphor of Dracula. Jack Halberstam postulates many of these in his essay "Technologies of Monstrosity: Bram Stoker's Dracula". He writes:


title: Horror fiction

text: Halberstram articulates a view of Dracula as manifesting the growing perception of the aristocracy as an evil and outdated notion to be defeated. The depiction of a multinational band of protagonists using the latest technologies (such as a telegraph) to quickly share, collate, and act upon new information is what leads to the destruction of the vampire. This is one of many interpretations of the metaphor of only one central figure of the canon of horror fiction, as over a dozen possible metaphors are referenced in the analysis, from the religious to the anti-semitic.


title: Horror fiction

text: Noël Carroll's "Philosophy of Horror" postulates that a modern piece of horror fiction's "monster", villain, or a more inclusive menace must exhibit the following two traits:


title: Horror fiction

text: In addition to those essays and articles shown above, scholarship on horror fiction is almost as old as horror fiction itself. In 1826, the gothic novelist Ann Radcliffe published an essay distinguishing two elements of horror fiction, "terror" and "horror." Whereas terror is a feeling of dread that takes place before an event happens, horror is a feeling of revulsion or disgust after an event has happened. Radcliffe describes terror as that which "expands the soul and awakens the faculties to a high degree of life," whereas horror is described as that which "freezes and nearly annihilates them."


title: Horror fiction

text: Modern scholarship on horror fiction draws upon a range of sources. In their historical studies of the gothic novel, both Devandra Varma and S.L. Varnado make reference to the theologian Rudolf Otto, whose concept of the "numinous" was originally used to describe religious experience.


title: Horror fiction

text: A recent survey reports how often horror media is consumed:To assess frequency of horror consumption, we asked respondents the following question: “In the past year, about how often have you used horror media (e.g., horror literature, film, and video games) for entertainment?” 11.3% said “Never,” 7.5% “Once,” 28.9% “Several times,” 14.1% “Once a month,” 20.8% “Several times a month,” 7.3% “Once a week,” and 10.2% “Several times a week.” Evidently, then, most respondents (81.3%) claimed to use horror media several times a year or more often. Unsurprisingly, there is a strong correlation between liking and frequency of use (r=.79, p<.0001).


title: Horror fiction

text: Achievements in horror fiction are recognized by numerous awards. The Horror Writers Association presents the Bram Stoker Awards for Superior Achievement, named in honor of Bram Stoker, author of the seminal horror novel "Dracula". The Australian Horror Writers Association presents annual Australian Shadows Awards. The International Horror Guild Award was presented annually to works of horror and dark fantasy from 1995 to 2008. The Shirley Jackson Awards are literary awards for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic works. Other important awards for horror literature are included as subcategories within general awards for fantasy and science fiction in such awards as the Aurealis Award.


title: Horror fiction

text: Some writers of fiction normally classified as "horror" tend to dislike the term, considering it too lurid. They instead use the terms dark fantasy or Gothic fantasy for supernatural horror, or "psychological thriller" for non-supernatural horror.


title: Puritans

text: The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become more Protestant. Puritanism played a significant role in English history, especially during the Protectorate.


title: Puritans

text: Puritans were dissatisfied with the limited extent of the English Reformation and with the Church of England's toleration of certain practices associated with the Roman Catholic Church. They formed and identified with various religious groups advocating greater purity of worship and doctrine, as well as personal and corporate piety. Puritans adopted a Reformed theology, and in that sense they were Calvinists (as were many of their earlier opponents). In church polity, some advocated separation from all other established Christian denominations in favour of autonomous gathered churches. These Separatist and Independent strands of Puritanism became prominent in the 1640s, when the supporters of a presbyterian polity in the Westminster Assembly were unable to forge a new English national church.


title: Puritans

text: By the late 1630s, Puritans were in alliance with the growing commercial world, with the parliamentary opposition to the royal prerogative, and with the Scottish Presbyterians with whom they had much in common. Consequently, they became a major political force in England and came to power as a result of the First English Civil War (1642–1646). Almost all Puritan clergy left the Church of England after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 and the "1662 Uniformity Act". Many continued to practice their faith in nonconformist denominations, especially in Congregationalist and Presbyterian churches. The nature of the movement in England changed radically, although it retained its character for a much longer period in New England.


title: Puritans

text: Puritanism was never a formally defined religious division within Protestantism, and the term "Puritan" itself was rarely used after the turn of the 18th century. Some Puritan ideals, including the formal rejection of Roman Catholicism, were incorporated into the doctrines of the Church of England; others were absorbed into the many Protestant denominations that emerged in the late 17th and early 18th centuries in North America and Britain. The Congregational churches, widely considered to be a part of the Reformed tradition, are descended from the Puritans. Moreover, Puritan beliefs are enshrined in the Savoy Declaration, the confession of faith held by the Congregationalist churches.


title: Puritans

text: In the 17th century, the word "Puritan" was a term applied not to just one group but to many. Historians still debate a precise definition of Puritanism. Originally, "Puritan" was a pejorative term characterizing certain Protestant groups as extremist. Thomas Fuller, in his "Church History", dates the first use of the word to 1564. Archbishop Matthew Parker of that time used it and "precisian" with a sense similar to the modern "stickler". Puritans, then, were distinguished for being "more intensely protestant than their protestant neighbors or even the Church of England". As a term of abuse, "Puritan" was not used by Puritans themselves. Those referred to as "Puritan" called themselves terms such as "the godly", "saints", "professors", or "God's children".


title: Puritans

text: "Non-separating Puritans" were dissatisfied with the Reformation of the Church of England but remained within it, advocating for further reform; they disagreed among themselves about how much further reformation was possible or even necessary. Others, who were later termed "Nonconformists", "Separatists", or "separating Puritans", thought the Church of England was so corrupt that true Christians should separate from it altogether. In its widest historical sense, the term "Puritan" includes both groups.


title: Puritans

text: Puritans should not be confused with other radical Protestant groups of the 16th and 17th centuries, such as Quakers, Seekers, and Familists, who believed that individuals could be directly guided by the Holy Spirit and prioritized direct revelation over the Bible.


title: Puritans

text: In current English, "puritan" often means "against pleasure". In such usage, "hedonism" and "puritanism" are antonyms. William Shakespeare described the vain, pompous killjoy Malvolio in "Twelfth Night" as "a kind of Puritan". H. L. Mencken defined Puritanism as "the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy." Puritans embraced sexuality but placed it in the context of marriage. Peter Gay writes of the Puritans' standard reputation for "dour prudery" as a "misreading that went unquestioned in the nineteenth century", commenting how unpuritanical they were in favour of married sexuality, and in opposition to the Catholic veneration of virginity, citing Edward Taylor and John Cotton. One Puritan settlement in western Massachusetts banished a husband because he refused to fulfill his sexual duties to his wife.


title: Puritans

text: Puritanism had a historical importance over a period of a century, followed by fifty years of development in New England. It changed character and emphasis almost decade by decade over that time.


title: Puritans

text: The Elizabethan Religious Settlement of 1559 established the Church of England as a Protestant church and brought the English Reformation to a close. During the reign of Elizabeth I (r. 1558–1603), the Church of England was widely considered a Reformed church, and Calvinists held the best bishoprics and deaneries. Nevertheless, it preserved certain characteristics of medieval Catholicism, such as cathedrals, church choirs, a formal liturgy contained in the "Book of Common Prayer", traditional clerical vestments and episcopal polity.


title: Puritans

text: Many English Protestants—especially those former Marian exiles now returning home to work as clergy and bishops—considered the settlement merely the first step in reforming England's church. The years of exile during the Marian Restoration had exposed them to practices of the Continental Reformed churches, and the most impatient clergy began introducing reforms within their local parishes. The initial conflict between Puritans and the authorities included instances of nonconformity such as omitting parts of the liturgy to allow more time for the sermon and singing of metrical psalms. Some Puritans refused to bow on hearing the name of Jesus, to make the sign of the cross in baptism, use wedding rings or the organ. Yet, the main complaint Puritans had was the requirement that clergy wear the white surplice and clerical cap. Puritan clergymen preferred to wear black academic attire. During the vestments controversy, church authorities attempted and failed to enforce the use of clerical vestments. While never a mass movement, the Puritans had the support and protection of powerful patrons in the aristocracy.


title: Puritans

text: In the 1570s, the primary dispute between Puritans and the authorities was over the appropriate form of church government. Many Puritans believed the Church of England should follow the example of Reformed churches in other parts of Europe and adopt presbyterian polity, under which government by bishops would be replaced with government by elders. However, all attempts to enact further reforms through Parliament were blocked by the Queen. Despite such setbacks, Puritan leaders such as John Field and Thomas Cartwright continued to promote presbyterianism through the formation of unofficial clerical conferences that allowed Puritan clergymen to organise and network. This covert Puritan network was discovered and dismantled during the Marprelate controversy of the 1580s. For the remainder of Elizabeth's reign, Puritans ceased to agitate for further reform.


title: Puritans

text: The accession of James I to the English throne brought the Millenary Petition, a Puritan manifesto of 1603 for reform of the English church, but James wanted a religious settlement along different lines. He called the Hampton Court Conference in 1604, and heard the teachings of four prominent Puritan leaders, including Laurence Chaderton, but largely sided with his bishops. He was well informed on theological matters by his education and Scottish upbringing, and he dealt shortly with the peevish legacy of Elizabethan Puritanism, pursuing an eirenic religious policy, in which he was arbiter.


title: Puritans

text: Many of James's episcopal appointments were Calvinists, notably James Montague, who was an influential courtier. Puritans still opposed much of the Roman Catholic summation in the Church of England, notably the "Book of Common Prayer" but also the use of non-secular vestments (cap and gown) during services, the sign of the Cross in baptism, and kneeling to receive Holy Communion. Some of the bishops under both Elizabeth and James tried to suppress Puritanism, though other bishops were more tolerant and, in many places, individual ministers were able to omit disliked portions of the "Book of Common Prayer".


title: Puritans

text: The Puritan movement of Jacobean times became distinctive by adaptation and compromise, with the emergence of "semi-separatism", "moderate puritanism", the writings of William Bradshaw (who adopted the term "Puritan" for himself), and the beginnings of Congregationalism. Most Puritans of this period were non-separating and remained within the Church of England; Separatists who left the Church of England altogether were numerically much fewer.


title: Puritans

text: The Puritan movement in England was riven over decades by emigration and inconsistent interpretations of Scripture, as well as some political differences that surfaced at that time. The Fifth Monarchy Men, a radical millenarian wing of Puritanism, aided by strident, popular clergy like Vavasor Powell, agitated from the right wing of the movement, even as sectarian groups like the Ranters, Levellers, and Quakers pulled from the left. The fragmentation created a collapse of the centre and, ultimately, sealed a political failure, while depositing an enduring spiritual legacy that would remain and grow in English-speaking Christianity.


title: Puritans

text: The Westminster Assembly was called in 1643, assembling clergy of the Church of England. The Assembly was able to agree to the Westminster Confession of Faith doctrinally, a consistent Reformed theological position. The "Directory of Public Worship" was made official in 1645, and the larger framework (now called the Westminster Standards) was adopted by the Church of Scotland. In England, the Standards were contested by Independents up to 1660.


title: Puritans

text: The Westminster Divines, on the other hand, were divided over questions of church polity and split into factions supporting a reformed episcopacy, presbyterianism, congregationalism, and Erastianism. The membership of the Assembly was heavily weighted towards the Presbyterians, but Oliver Cromwell was a Puritan and an independent Congregationalist Separatist who imposed his doctrines upon them. The Church of England of the Interregnum (1649–60) was run along Presbyterian lines but never became a national Presbyterian church, such as existed in Scotland, and England was not the theocratic state which leading Puritans had called for as "godly rule".


title: Puritans

text: At the time of the English Restoration in 1660, the Savoy Conference was called to determine a new religious settlement for England and Wales. Under the "Act of Uniformity 1662", the Church of England was restored to its pre-Civil War constitution with only minor changes, and the Puritans found themselves sidelined. A traditional estimate of historian Calamy is that around 2,400 Puritan clergy left the Church in the "Great Ejection" of 1662. At this point, the term "Dissenter" came to include "Puritan", but more accurately described those (clergy or lay) who "dissented" from the 1662 "Book of Common Prayer".


title: Puritans

text: The Dissenters divided themselves from all Christians in the Church of England and established their own Separatist congregations in the 1660s and 1670s. An estimated 1,800 of the ejected clergy continued in some fashion as ministers of religion, according to Richard Baxter. The government initially attempted to suppress these schismatic organisations by using the Clarendon Code. There followed a period in which schemes of "comprehension" were proposed, under which Presbyterians could be brought back into the Church of England, but nothing resulted from them. The Whigs opposed the court religious policies and argued that the Dissenters should be allowed to worship separately from the established Church, and this position ultimately prevailed when the "Toleration Act" was passed in the wake of the Glorious Revolution in 1689. This permitted the licensing of Dissenting ministers and the building of chapels. The term "Nonconformist" generally replaced the term "Dissenter" from the middle of the 18th century.


title: Puritans

text: Some Puritans left for New England, particularly from 1629 to 1640 (the Eleven Years' Tyranny under King Charles I), supporting the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and other settlements among the northern colonies. The large-scale Puritan immigration to New England ceased by 1641, with around 21,000 having moved across the Atlantic. This English-speaking population in the United States was not descended from all of the original colonists, since many returned to England shortly after arriving on the continent, but it produced more than 16 million descendants. This so-called "Great Migration" is not so named because of sheer numbers, which were much less than the number of English citizens who immigrated to Virginia and the Caribbean during this time. The rapid growth of the New England colonies (around 700,000 by 1790) was almost entirely due to the high birth rate and lower death rate per year.


title: Puritans

text: Puritan hegemony lasted for at least a century. That century can be broken down into three parts: the generation of John Cotton and Richard Mather, 1630–62 from the founding to the Restoration, years of virtual independence and nearly autonomous development; the generation of Increase Mather, 1662–89 from the Restoration and the Halfway Covenant to the Glorious Revolution, years of struggle with the British crown; and the generation of Cotton Mather, 1689–1728 from the overthrow of Edmund Andros (in which Cotton Mather played a part) and the new charter, mediated by Increase Mather, to the death of Cotton Mather.


title: Puritans

text: The Puritans in the Colonies were great believers in education. They wanted their children to be able to read the Bible themselves, and interpret it themselves, rather than have to have a clergyman tell them what it says and means.


title: Puritans

text: In 1635, they established the Boston Latin School to educate their sons, the first and oldest formal education institution in the English speaking New World. They also set up what were called dame schools for their daughters, and in other cases taught their daughters at home how to read. As a result, Puritans were among the most literate societies in the world. By the time of the American Revolution there were 40 newspapers in the United States (at a time when there were only two cities—New York and Philadelphia—with as many as 20,000 people in them).


title: Puritans

text: "Puritanism" broadly refers to a diverse religious reform movement in Britain committed to the Continental Reformed tradition. While Puritans did not agree on all doctrinal points, most shared similar views on the nature of God, human sinfulness, and the relationship between God and mankind. They believed that all of their beliefs should be based on the Bible, which they considered to be divinely inspired.


title: Puritans

text: The concept of covenant was extremely important to Puritans, and covenant theology was central to their beliefs. With roots in the writings of Reformed theologians John Calvin and Heinrich Bullinger, covenant theology was further developed by Puritan theologians Dudley Fenner, William Perkins, John Preston, Richard Sibbes, William Ames and, most fully by Ames's Dutch student, Johannes Cocceius. Covenant theology asserts that when God created Adam and Eve he promised them eternal life in return for perfect obedience; this promise was termed the covenant of works. After the fall of man, human nature was corrupted by original sin and unable to fulfill the covenant of works, since each person inevitably violated God's law as expressed in the Ten Commandments. As sinners, every person deserved damnation.


title: Puritans

text: Puritans shared with other Calvinists a belief in double predestination, that some people (the elect) were destined by God to receive grace and salvation while others were destined for Hell. No one, however, could merit salvation. According to covenant theology, Christ's sacrifice on the cross made possible the covenant of grace, by which those selected by God could be saved. Puritans believed in unconditional election and irresistible grace—God's grace was given freely without condition to the elect and could not be refused.


title: Puritans

text: Covenant theology made individual salvation deeply personal. It held that God's predestination was not "impersonal and mechanical" but was a "covenant of grace" that one entered into by faith. Therefore, being a Christian could never be reduced to simple "intellectual acknowledgment" of the truth of Christianity. Puritans agreed "that the effectual call of each elect saint of God would always come as an individuated personal encounter with God's promises".


title: Puritans

text: The process by which the elect are brought from spiritual death to spiritual life (regeneration) was described as conversion. Early on, Puritans did not consider a specific conversion experience normative or necessary, but many gained assurance of salvation from such experiences. Over time, however, Puritan theologians developed a framework for authentic religious experience based on their own experiences as well as those of their parishioners. Eventually, Puritans came to regard a specific conversion experience as an essential mark of one's election.


title: Puritans

text: The Puritan conversion experience was commonly described as occurring in discrete phases. It began with a preparatory phase designed to produce contrition for sin through introspection, Bible study and listening to preaching. This was followed by humiliation, when the sinner realized that he or she was helpless to break free from sin and that their good works could never earn forgiveness. It was after reaching this point—the realization that salvation was possible only because of divine mercy—that the person would experience justification, when the righteousness of Christ is imputed to the elect and their minds and hearts are regenerated. For some Puritans, this was a dramatic experience and they referred to it as being born again.


title: Puritans

text: Confirming that such a conversion had actually happened often required prolonged and continual introspection. Historian Perry Miller wrote that the Puritans "liberated men from the treadmill of indulgences and penances, but cast them on the iron couch of introspection". It was expected that conversion would be followed by sanctification—"the progressive growth in the saint's ability to better perceive and seek God's will, and thus to lead a holy life". Some Puritans attempted to find assurance of their faith by keeping detailed records of their behavior and looking for the evidence of salvation in their lives. Puritan clergy wrote many spiritual guides to help their parishioners pursue personal piety and sanctification. These included Arthur Dent's "The Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven" (1601), Richard Rogers's "Seven Treatises" (1603), Henry Scudder's "Christian's Daily Walk" (1627) and Richard Sibbes's "The Bruised Reed and Smoking Flax" (1630).


title: Puritans

text: Too much emphasis on one's good works could be criticized for being too close to Arminianism, and too much emphasis on subjective religious experience could be criticized as Antinomianism. Many Puritans relied on both personal religious experience and self-examination to assess their spiritual condition.


title: Puritans

text: Puritanism's experiential piety would be inherited by the evangelical Protestants of the 18th century. While evangelical views on conversion were heavily influenced by Puritan theology, the Puritans believed that assurance of one's salvation was "rare, late and the fruit of struggle in the experience of believers", whereas evangelicals believed that assurance was normative for all the truly converted.


title: Puritans

text: While most Puritans were members of the Church of England, they were critical of its worship practices. In the 17th century, Sunday worship in the established church took the form of the Morning Prayer service in the "Book of Common Prayer". This might include a sermon, but Holy Communion or the Lord's Supper was only occasionally observed. Officially, lay people were only required to receive communion three times a year, but most people only received communion once a year at Easter. Puritans were concerned about biblical errors and Catholic remnants within the prayer book. Puritans objected to bowing at the name of Jesus, the requirement that priests wear the surplice, and the use of written, set prayers in place of improvised prayers.


title: Puritans

text: The sermon was central to Puritan piety. It was not only a means of religious education; Puritans believed it was the most common way that God prepared a sinner's heart for conversion. On Sundays, Puritan ministers often shortened the liturgy to allow more time for preaching. Puritan churchgoers attended two sermons on Sundays and as many weekday sermons and lectures they could find, often traveling for miles. Puritans were distinct for their adherence to Sabbatarianism.


title: Puritans

text: Puritans taught that there were two sacraments: baptism and the Lord's Supper. Puritans agreed with the church's practice of infant baptism. However, the effect of baptism was disputed. Puritans objected to the prayer book's assertion of baptismal regeneration. In Puritan theology, infant baptism was understood in terms of covenant theology—baptism replaced circumcision as a sign of the covenant and marked a child's admission into the visible church. It could not be assumed that baptism produces regeneration. The Westminster Confession states that the grace of baptism is only effective for those who are among the elect, and its effects lie dormant until one experiences conversion later in life. Puritans wanted to do away with godparents, who made baptismal vows on behalf of infants, and give that responsibility to the child's father. Puritans also objected to priests making the sign of the cross in baptism. Private baptisms were opposed because Puritans believed that preaching should always accompany sacraments. Some Puritan clergy even refused to baptise dying infants because that implied the sacrament contributed to salvation.


title: Puritans

text: Puritans rejected both Roman Catholic (transubstantiation) and Lutheran (sacramental union) teachings that Christ is physically present in the bread and wine of the Lord's Supper. Instead, Puritans embraced the Reformed doctrine of real spiritual presence, believing that in the Lord's Supper the faithful receive Christ spiritually. In agreement with Thomas Cranmer, the Puritans stressed "that Christ comes down to us in the sacrament by His Word and Spirit, offering Himself as our spiritual food and drink". They criticised the prayer book service for being too similar to the Catholic mass. For example, the requirement that people kneel to receive communion implied adoration of the Eucharist, a practice linked to transubstantiation. Puritans also criticised the Church of England for allowing unrepentant sinners to receive communion. Puritans wanted better spiritual preparation (such as clergy home visits and testing people on their knowledge of the catechism) for communion and better church discipline to ensure that the unworthy were kept from the sacrament.


title: Puritans

text: Puritans did not believe confirmation was necessary and thought candidates were poorly prepared since bishops did not have the time to examine them properly. The marriage service was criticised for using a wedding ring (which implied that marriage was a sacrament) and having the groom vow to his bride "with my body I thee worship", which Puritans considered blasphemous. In the funeral service, the priest committed the body to the ground "in sure and certain hope of resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ." Puritans objected to this phrase because they did not believe it was true for everyone. They suggested it be rewritten as "we commit his body [etc.] believing a resurrection of the just and unjust, some to joy, and some to punishment."


title: Puritans

text: Puritans eliminated choral music and musical instruments in their religious services because these were associated with Roman Catholicism; however, singing the Psalms was considered appropriate (see Exclusive psalmody). Church organs were commonly damaged or destroyed in the Civil War period, such as when an axe was taken to the organ of Worcester Cathedral in 1642.


title: Puritans

text: While the Puritans were united in their goal of furthering the English Reformation, they were always divided over issues of ecclesiology and church polity, specifically questions relating to the manner of organizing congregations, how individual congregations should relate with one another and whether established national churches were scriptural. On these questions, Puritans divided between supporters of episcopal polity, presbyterian polity and congregational polity.


title: Puritans

text: The episcopalians (known as the prelatical party) were conservatives who supported retaining bishops if those leaders supported reform and agreed to share power with local churches. They also supported the idea of having a Book of Common Prayer, but they were against demanding strict conformity or having too much ceremony. In addition, these Puritans called for a renewal of preaching, pastoral care and Christian discipline within the Church of England.


title: Puritans

text: Like the episcopalians, the presbyterians agreed that there should be a national church but one structured on the model of the Church of Scotland. They wanted to replace bishops with a system of elective and representative governing bodies of clergy and laity (local sessions, presbyteries, synods, and ultimately a national general assembly). During the Interregnum, the presbyterians had limited success at reorganizing the Church of England. The Westminster Assembly proposed the creation of a presbyterian system, but the Long Parliament left implementation to local authorities. As a result, the Church of England never developed a complete presbyterian hierarchy.


title: Puritans

text: Congregationalists or Independents believed in the autonomy of the local church, which ideally would be a congregation of "visible saints" (meaning those who had experienced conversion). Members would be required to abide by a church covenant, in which they "pledged to join in the proper worship of God and to nourish each other in the search for further religious truth". Such churches were regarded as complete within themselves, with full authority to determine their own membership, administer their own discipline and ordain their own ministers. Furthermore, the sacraments would only be administered to those in the church covenant.


title: Puritans

text: Most congregational Puritans remained within the Church of England, hoping to reform it according to their own views. The New England Congregationalists were also adamant that they were not separating from the Church of England. However, some Puritans equated the Church of England with the Roman Catholic Church, and therefore considered it no Christian church at all. These groups, such as the Brownists, would split from the established church and become known as Separatists. Other Separatists embraced more radical positions on separation of church and state and believer's baptism, becoming early Baptists.


title: Puritans

text: Based on Biblical portrayals of Adam and Eve, Puritans believed that marriage was rooted in procreation, love, and, most importantly, salvation. Husbands were the spiritual heads of the household, while women were to demonstrate religious piety and obedience under male authority. Furthermore, marriage represented not only the relationship between husband and wife, but also the relationship between spouses and God. Puritan husbands commanded authority through family direction and prayer. The female relationship to her husband and to God was marked by submissiveness and humility.


title: Puritans

text: The paradox created by female inferiority in the public sphere and the spiritual equality of men and women in marriage, then, gave way to the informal authority of women concerning matters of the home and childrearing. With the consent of their husbands, wives made important decisions concerning the labour of their children, property, and the management of inns and taverns owned by their husbands. Pious Puritan mothers laboured for their children's righteousness and salvation, connecting women directly to matters of religion and morality. In her poem titled "In Reference to her Children", poet Anne Bradstreet reflects on her role as a mother:


title: Puritans

text: Bradstreet alludes to the temporality of motherhood by comparing her children to a flock of birds on the precipice of leaving home. While Puritans praised the obedience of young children, they also believed that, by separating children from their mothers at adolescence, children could better sustain a superior relationship with God. A child could only be redeemed through religious education and obedience. Girls carried the additional burden of Eve's corruption and were catechised separately from boys at adolescence. Boys' education prepared them for vocations and leadership roles, while girls were educated for domestic and religious purposes. The pinnacle of achievement for children in Puritan society, however, occurred with the conversion process.


title: Puritans

text: Puritans viewed the relationship between master and servant similarly to that of parent and child. Just as parents were expected to uphold Puritan religious values in the home, masters assumed the parental responsibility of housing and educating young servants. Older servants also dwelt with masters and were cared for in the event of illness or injury. African-American and Indian servants were likely excluded from such benefits.


title: Puritans

text: Like most Christians in the early modern period, Puritans believed in the active existence of the devil and demons as evil forces that could possess and cause harm to men and women. There was also widespread belief in witchcraft and witches—persons in league with the devil. "Unexplained phenomena such as the death of livestock, human disease, and hideous fits suffered by young and old" might all be blamed on the agency of the devil or a witch.


title: Puritans

text: Puritan pastors undertook exorcisms for demonic possession in some high-profile cases. Exorcist John Darrell was supported by Arthur Hildersham in the case of Thomas Darling. Samuel Harsnett, a skeptic on witchcraft and possession, attacked Darrell. However, Harsnett was in the minority, and many clergy, not only Puritans, believed in witchcraft and possession.


title: Puritans

text: In the 16th and 17th centuries, thousands of people throughout Europe were accused of being witches and executed. In England and Colonial America, Puritans engaged in witch hunts as well. In the 1640s, Matthew Hopkins, the self-proclaimed "Witchfinder General", whose career flourished during Puritan rule, was responsible for accusing over two hundred people of witchcraft, mainly in East Anglia. Between 1644 and 1647, Hopkins and his colleague John Stearne sent more accused people to the gallows than all the other witch-hunters in England of the previous 160 years. In New England, few people were accused and convicted of witchcraft before 1692; there were at most sixteen convictions.


title: Puritans

text: The Salem witch trials of 1692 had a lasting impact on the historical reputation of New England Puritans. Though this witch hunt occurred after Puritans lost political control of the Massachusetts colony, Puritans instigated the judicial proceedings against the accused and comprised the members of the court that convicted and sentenced the accused. By the time Governor William Phips ended the trials, fourteen women and five men had been hanged as witches.


title: Puritans

text: Puritan millennialism has been placed in the broader context of European Reformed beliefs about the millennium and interpretation of biblical prophecy, for which representative figures of the period were Johannes Piscator, Thomas Brightman, Joseph Mede, Johannes Heinrich Alsted, and John Amos Comenius. Like most English Protestants of the time, Puritans based their eschatological views on an historicist interpretation of the Book of Revelation and the Book of Daniel. Protestant theologians identified the sequential phases the world must pass through before the Last Judgment could occur and tended to place their own time period near the end. It was expected that tribulation and persecution would increase but eventually the church's enemies—the Antichrist (identified with the Roman Catholic Church) and the Ottoman Empire—would be defeated. Based on Revelation 20, it was believed that a thousand-year period (the millennium) would occur, during which the saints would rule with Christ on earth.


title: Puritans

text: In contrast to other Protestants who tended to view eschatology as an explanation for "God's remote plans for the world and man", Puritans understood it to describe "the cosmic environment in which the regenerate soldier of Christ was now to do battle against the power of sin". On a personal level, eschatology was related to sanctification, assurance of salvation, and the conversion experience. On a larger level, eschatology was the lens through which events such as the English Civil War and the Thirty Years' War were interpreted. There was also an optimistic aspect to Puritan millennianism; Puritans anticipated a future worldwide religious revival before the Second Coming of Christ. Another departure from other Protestants was the widespread belief among Puritans that the conversion of the Jews to Christianity was an important sign of the apocalypse.