American Literature

Module 2: Colonial Literature
Reported by: Sanilyn Grace T. Zamora
Sources: Encyclopedia
             World Literature
             www.shmoop.com
                                                                                                              
                                                                                  
                                                                                

At the end of this module the student are expected to:
1. Describe the Colonial literature; 
2. Write a summary of American literature and Colonial literature.

Introduction
                Wherever there are people there will be a literature. A literature is a record of human experience, and people have always been impelled to write down their impressions of life. They do so in diaries and letters, in pamphlets and books, and in essays poems, plays and stories. In this respect American literature is like any other. There are, however, many characteristics of American writing that make it different from all others. This has not always been true.
                American literature began with the first English colonies in Virginia and New England. Colonists came to the New World to find religious freedom and prosperity. They came, however, in no spirit of revolution. They came as Englishmen, bringing with them the literary wealth of English legends, ballads, and poems and the richness of the English language. They were loyal to the crown. These settlers did not even call themselves Americans.
                How the English colonists slowly came to think and act as “Americans” is a familiar and proud story. How their literature slowly grew to be “American” writing is less well known. The growth of American literature, however, follows closely the history of the nation from its beginning to the present time.

History
                The first writings in English the North America were by adventurers and colonists for readers back in England. While few of these could be called literature, some journals and accounts did manifest a lasting quality and interest. Captain John Smith’s vigorous True Relation of Such Occurrences and Accidents…as Hath Happened in Virginia (published in England 1608) was the first personal account of life in the colonies. More sober histories of the period included John Winthrop’s Journal, which described life in the Massachusetts Bay Colony from 1630 to 1649, and William Bradford’s History of Plimoth Plantation. Religious and instructional works, however, dominated colonial writing, with sermons and religious tracts making up most of the colonists’ reading matter. The first book published in the Puritan colony was the Bay Psalm Book (1740). The most important of the early religious writers were Cotton Mather (a 2-volume ecclesiastical history of New England), Jonathan Edwards (sermons and books), and John Woolman (a journal reflecting on his life in the Quaker belief). Poetry in colonial times also largely reflected religious and pious themes. Among the early poets were Michael Wigglesworth, Anne Bradstreet, and Edward Taylor.

 Colonial literature
 American writing began with the work of English adventurers and colonists in the New World chiefly for the benefit of readers in the mother country. Some of these early works reached the level of literature, as in the robust and perhaps truthful account of his adventures by Captain John Smith and the sober, tendentious journalistic histories of John Winthrop and William Bradford in New England. From the beginning, however, the literature of New England was also directed to the edification and instruction of the colonists themselves, intended to direct them in the ways of the godly. Some of the American literatures were pamphlets and writings extolling the benefits of the colonies to both a European and colonist audience. Captain John Smith could be considered the first American author with his works: A True Relation of Such Occurrences and Accidents of Noate as Hath Happened in Virginia... (1608) and The General Histories of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles (1624). Other writers of this manner included Daniel Denton, Thomas Ashe, William Penn, George Percy, William Strachey, Daniel Coxe, Gabriel Thomas, and John Lawson. The religious disputes that prompted settlement in America were also topics of early writing. A journal written by John Winthrop, The History of New England, discussed the religious foundations of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Edward Winslow also recorded a diary of the first years after the Mayflower's arrival. Other religiously influenced writers included Increase Mather and William Bradford, author of the journal published as a History of Plymouth Plantation, 1620–47. Others like Roger Williams and Nathaniel Ward more fiercely argued state and church separation. And still others, like Thomas Morton, cared little for the church; Morton's The New English Canaan mocked the religious settlers and declared that the Native Americans were actually better people than the British. Puritan poetry was highly religious in nature, and one of the earliest books of poetry published was the Bay Psalm Book, a set of translations of the biblical Psalms; however, the translators' intention was not to create great literature but to created hymns that could be used in worship.Among lyric poets, the most important figures are Anne Bradstreet, who wrote personal poems about her family and homelife; pastor Edward Taylor, whose best poems, the Preparatory Meditations, were written to help him prepare for leading worship; and Michael Wigglesworth, whose best-selling poem, The Day of Doom, describes the time of judgment. Nicholas Noyes was also known for his doggerel verse.
Other late writings described conflicts and interaction with the Indians, as seen in writings by Daniel Gookin, Alexander Whitaker, John Mason, Benjamin Church, and Mary Rowlandson. John Eliot translated the Bible into the Algonquin language.
Of the second generation of New England settlers, Cotton Mather stands out as a theologian and historian, who wrote the history of the colonies with a view to God's activity in their midst and to connecting the Puritan leaders with the great heroes of the Christian faith. His best-known works include the Magnalia Christi Americana, the Wonders of the Invisible World and The Biblia Americana.
Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield represented the Great Awakening, a religious revival in the early 18th century that asserted strict Calvinism. Other Puritan and religious writers include Thomas Hooker, Thomas Shepard, John Wise, and Samuel Willard. Less strict and serious writers included Samuel Sewall (who wrote a diary revealing the daily life of the late 17th century), and Sarah Kemble Knight.
New England was not the only area in the colonies; southern literature is represented by the diary of William Byrd of Virginia, as well as by The History of the Dividing Line, which detailed the expedition to survey the swamp between Virginia and North Carolina but which also comments on the different lifestyles of the Native Americans and the white settlers in the area. In a similar book, Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West, William Bartram described in great detail the Southern landscape and the Native American peoples whom he encountered; Bartram's book was very popular in Europe, being translated into German, French and Dutch.
As the colonies moved towards their break with England, perhaps one of the most important discussions of American culture and identity came from the French immigrant J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur, whose Letters from an American Farmer addresses the question what is an American by moving between praise for the opportunities and peace offered in the new society and recognition that the solid life of the farmer must rest uneasily between the oppressive aspects of the urban life (with its luxuries built on slavery) and the lawless aspects of the frontier, where the lack of social structures leads to the loss of civilized living.
This same period saw the birth of African American literature, through the poetry of Phillis Wheatley and, shortly after the Revolution, the slave narrative of Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano. This era also saw the birth of Native American literature, through the two published works of Samson Occom: A Sermon Preached at the Execution of Moses Paul and a popular hymnbook, Collection of Hymns and Spiritual Songs, "the first Indian best-seller".
The revolutionary period also contained political writings, including those by colonists Samuel Adams, Josiah Quincy, John Dickinson, and Joseph Galloway, a loyalist to the crown. Two key figures were Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine. Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac and The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin are esteemed works with their wit and influence toward the formation of a budding American identity. Paine's pamphlet Common Sense and The American Crisis writings are seen as playing a key role in influencing the political tone of the period.
During the revolution itself, poems and songs such as "Yankee Doodle" and "Nathan Hale" were popular. Major satirists included John Trumbull and Francis Hopkinson. Philip Morin Freneau also wrote poems about the war's course.
During the 18th century, writing shifted focus from the Puritanical ideals of Winthrop and Bradford to the power of the human mind and rational thought. The belief that human and natural occurrences were messages from God no longer fit with the new human centered world. Many intellectuals believed that the human mind could comprehend the universe through the laws of physics as described by Isaac Newton. The enormous scientific, economic, social, and philosophical, changes of the 18th century, called the Enlightenment, impacted the authority of clergyman and scripture, making way for democratic principles. The increase in population helped account for the greater diversity of opinion in religious and political life as seen in the literature of this time. In 1670, the population of the colonies numbered approximately 111,000. Thirty years later it was more than 250,000. By 1760, it reached 1,600,000. The growth of communities and therefore social life led people to become more interested in the progress of individuals and their shared experience on the colonies. These new ideals are accounted for in the widespread popularity of Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography.
The first work published in the Puritan colonies was the Bay Psalm Book (1640), and the whole effort of the divines who wrote furiously to set forth their views—among them Roger Williams and Thomas Hooker—was to defend and promote visions of the religious state. They set forth their visions—in effect the first formulation of the concept of national destiny—in a series of impassioned histories and jeremiads from Edward Johnson's Wonder-Working Providence (1654) to Cotton Mather's epic Magnalia Christi Americana (1702).
Even Puritan poetry was offered uniformly to the service of God. Michael Wigglesworth's Day of Doom (1662) was uncompromisingly theological, and Anne Bradstreet's poems, issued as The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America (1650), were reflective of her own piety. The best of the Puritan poets, Edward Taylor, whose work was not published until two centuries after his death, wrote metaphysical verse worthy of comparison with that of the English metaphysical poet George Herbert.
Sermons and tracts poured forth until austere Calvinism found its last utterance in the words of Jonathan Edwards. In the other colonies writing was usually more mundane and on the whole less notable, though the journal of the Quaker John Woolman is highly esteemed, and some critics maintain that the best writing of the colonial period is found in the witty and urbane observations of William Byrd, a gentleman planter of Westover, Virginia.
The Colonial Period spans the years 1607, when the English settlers founded Jamestown, Virginia, to 1765, when the British passed the Stamp Act and set off the American Revolution. Colonial works were influenced by British writers, since America was a colony during that period. The works consist largely of historical and teaching materials. You will find lots of letters, journals, narratives, and histories from that period. Common works include Mary Rowlandson's captivity narrative, the histories of William Bradford and John Winthrop, the sermons of Jonathan Edwards, etc. A few poets emerged during this period: Anne Bradstreet, Edward Taylor, and Michael Wigglesworth. The other notable voice of the period was Benjamin Franklin, memorable for his non-religious and non-historical prose.

Assessment
1.       What was the first book published in America?
2.       Who was considered the first American author? Enumerate his works.
3.       What influenced colonial works? Why?
4.       Briefly summarize American literature and Colonial literature.

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American Literature

Module 1: American Literature
Reported by: Sanilyn Grace T. Zamora
Sources: Encyclopedia
World Literature
www.infospoof.com


At the end of this module the student are expected to:
1. Describe the history of American literature;
2. Appreciate American Literature;
3. Write an essay about American literature.


Introduction:
          Literature is a term used to describe written or spoken material. Broadly speaking, "literature" is used to describe anything from creative writing to more technical or scientific works, but the term is most commonly used to refer to works of the creative imagination, including works of poetry, drama, fiction, and nonfiction.
“Who reads an American book?” asked the British critic Sydney Smith in 1820. “Literature the Americans have none...it is all imported.” But nearly 150 years later, American literature had developed to the point that the British critic Julian Mitchell asked; “Why is that American novelists seem to write so very much better than we do?”
It took Americans many years to develop a national literature. The settlers who arrived in the 1600’s had little time to write books. They were too busy clearing the wilderness and conquering the land. Gradually, as the nation grew, a rich and imaginative literature began to appear. By the mid-1800’s, only 30 years after Sydney Smith’s scornful remark, America was the home of many major literary achievements. Such authors as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Walt Whitman had produced masterpieces that ranked with the great works of literature.
Today, American authors are recognized throughout the world for their important contributions to all forms of literature. Washington Irving and Edgar Allan Poe helped make the short story a major literary form. The free verse of Whitman, the short poems of Emily Dickinson, and the literary theories of Henry James created new paths in poetry and fiction. In drama, Eugene O’Neill influenced playwrights everywhere with his bold techniques and daring new themes.
American literature has been translated into almost every language. Russians study Mark Twain, French people quote Henry David Thoreau, and Italians discuss Ernest Hemingway. American authors no longer wonder whether anyone will read their work. Instead they face the challenge of producing enough works of quality to satisfy world wide interest.

History
Long before America got its name, there was a dream of a good land that man might find for himself, a land of material riches and spiritual hope, a recoverable Atlantis and a discoverable Indies. The prospect stirred men’s imaginations as well as their explorations. The vision did not cease with the first European landings on the North American continent. The expanding frontier encouraged fresh surgings inland. The 18th century American political revolution gave promise of a freer life, and the material prosperity of the 19th century added the sustaining atmosphere of plenty to the developing democratic ideal. Both offered new definitions of a persisting promise to the restless peoples of the Old World. The 20th century did not divert the focus of attention from a nation that had emerged as the most prosperous on earth. In two world wars the Americans had swung the balance of power; in peace as in war their technologies had permeated the globe; their books were being read everywhere, not only for their vitality but out of a general curiosity about America and Americans. From the beginning, Americans have examined and attempted to explain themselves in their literature, and the perplexing question, “What is an American?” has ever lost its interest either inside or outside the American boundaries.
This curiosity about America and Americans has been accompanied by an increasingly familiarity with American English on a global scale. Through American motion pictures the international ear has been turned to the cadences of the American way of speaking. Through American literature the world has become familiar with the distinctive American way of writing. English which has been adopted as a major international language is all the more pliant because of its enrichment by American speech and writing.
There has been an increasing recognition of the excellence of American literature. Among 19th century American writers, Hawthorne, Melville, James, Whitman, and Emily Dickinson have become established as literary classics rather than as historical figures. In the 20th century, Eliot and Pound and Hemingway and Faulkner are major influences wherever English is read or its literary forms imitated. One result of the international recognition of American literature has been its introduction as an integral part of school and university courses of study throughout the world.
Since, World War II, Americans themselves have become increasingly international-minded, reading more of the world’s fiction, poetry, and drama. In the same way that the writers abroad read Americans and assimilate them artistically, Americans have made world literature as much a part of their consciousness as the intellectual and artistic contributions of their own writers.
The earliest American writings were concerned directly with the dream of a new world and the first attempts at its realization. From both North and South came published accounts of pioneering motives and settlements. They form the picture of foundations. Today, Americans remember their first colony at Jamestown, Va., on much the same terms as contemporary England knew of it through the writings of chroniclers, especially Capt. John Smith (1580-1631). After an adventurer’s life, he sailed for Virginia late in 1606 with about 143 colonists on an expedition financed by the Virginia Company of London. When the vessel that had brought them returned to England in 1608, Smith sent with it a narrative for publication at home, A True Relation of such occurrences and accidents of noate as hath happened in Virginia since the first planting of that Collony, which is now resident in the South part thereof, till the last returne from thence (1608). Smith’s account, straightforward and precise like its title, was properly a combination of an economic report for the information of stockholders in the venture, a newsletter for the curious, and an encouragement for future settlers. Blunt and functional in its prose style, it might from a merely decorative point of view have been, as Smith was to say of his Generall Historie of Virginia, New England and the Summer Isles (1624), “clad in better robes than my rude military hand can cut out in paper ornaments.” But the first Virginia settlers used neither paper nor lace ornamentation in their daily living, as Smith’s scornful remark indicates; theirs was a business like venture. Smith wrote other accounts of his sometimes quarrelsome American experiences, none of which is better known than The True Travels, Adventures, and Observations of Captaine John Smith in Europe, Asia, Affrica, and America, from Anno Domini 1593 to 1629, the autobiography that established the legend of Pocahontas and made of Captain Smith himself a swashbuckling hero.
Characteristics of American literature
The United States has such a large and varied literature that we can make no true generalizations about it. But three characteristics seem to stand out and give it a flavor all its known.
First, American literature reflects beliefs and traditions that come from the nation’s frontier days. The pioneer ideals of self-reliance and independence appear again and again in American writings. American authors have great respect for the value and importance of the individual. They tend to reject authority and to emphasize democracy and the equality of the people. They often celebrate nature and a sense of boundless space.
Second, American writers have always had a strong tendency to break with literary tradition and to strike out in their own directions. Writers of other countries seem to absorb all their national literary traditions. But many American authors have rejected the old in order to create something new.
Third, a lively streak of humor runs through American literature from earliest times to the present. In many cases, a dash of salty humor saves a serious theme from becoming too sentimental. American humor tends to be exaggerated rather than subtle. It reflects the people’s ability to laugh at themselves even during the most difficult times. People everywhere would probably still agree with the Scottish author Andrew Lang. in 1892, Lang wrote; “If you see the tears running down from the eyes of a fellow countryman…, if he be writhing with mirth too powerful for expression, the odds are he has got hold of a Yankee book.”
Assessment:
1. What is literature?
2. Who were the American authors that are recognized because of their contributions to literature?
3. Give the three characteristics of American literature.
4. Write an essay about American literature.

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