Outline of American Literature (U.S. Department of State Outline series)

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Between and , there were as many university graduates in the northeastern section of the United States, known as New England, as in the mother country — an astounding fact when one considers that most educated people of the time were aristocrats who were unwilling to risk their lives in wilderness conditions. The self-made and often self-educated Puritans were notable exceptions.

The Puritan definition of good writing was that which brought home a full awareness of the importance of worshipping God and of the spiritual dangers that the soul faced on Earth. Puritan style varied enormously — from complex metaphysical poetry to homely journals and crushingly pedantic religious history.

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Whatever the style or genre, certain themes remained constant. Life was seen as a test; failure led to eternal damnation and hellfire, and success to heavenly bliss.

This world was an arena of constant battle between the forces of God and the forces of Satan, a formidable enemy with many disguises. Scholars have long pointed out the link between Puritanism and capitalism: Both rest on ambition, hard work, and an intense striving for success. Wealth and status were sought not only for themselves, but as welcome reassurances of spiritual health and promises of eternal life. Moreover, the concept of stewardship encouraged success.

They did not draw lines of distinction between the secular and religious spheres: All of life was an expression of the divine will — a belief that later resurfaces in Transcendentalism. In recording ordinary events to reveal their spiritual meaning, Puritan authors commonly cited the Bible, chapter and verse. The first Puritan colonists who settled New England exemplified the seriousness of Reformation Christianity. Like most Puritans, they interpreted the Bible literally. Seen as traitors to the king as well as heretics damned to hell, they were often persecuted.

Their separation took them ultimately to the New World. William Bradford was elected governor of Plymouth in the Massachusetts Bay Colony shortly after the Separatists landed. His description of the first view of America is justly famous:. Being thus passed the vast ocean, and a sea of troubles…they had now no friends to welcome them nor inns to entertain or refresh their weatherbeaten bodies; no houses or much less towns to repair to, to seek for succor…savage barbarians…were readier to fill their sides with arrows than otherwise. And for the reason it was winter, and they that know the winters of that country know them to be sharp and violent, and subject to cruel and fierce storms…all stand upon them with a weatherbeaten face, and the whole country, full of woods and thickets, represented a wild and savage hue.

The compact was a harbinger of the Declaration of Independence to come a century and a half later. Puritans disapproved of such secular amusements as dancing and card-playing, which were associated with ungodly aristocrats and immoral living. Puritan minds poured their tremendous energies into nonfiction and pious genres: Their intimate diaries and meditations record the rich inner lives of this introspective and intense people. The first published book of poems by an American was also the first American book to be published by a woman — Anne Bradstreet.

It is not surprising that the book was published in England, given the lack of printing presses in the early years of the first American colonies. She emigrated with her family when she was Her husband eventually became governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, which later grew into the great city of Boston. She preferred her long, religious poems on conventional subjects such as the seasons, but contemporary readers most enjoy the witty poems on subjects from daily life and her warm and loving poems to her husband and children. She often uses elaborate conceits or extended metaphors.

If ever two were one, then surely we. If ever man were loved by wife, then thee; If ever wife was happy in a man, Compare with me, ye women, if you can. I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold Or all the riches that the East doth hold.

Outline of America

My love is such that rivers cannot quench, Nor ought but love from thee, give recompense. Thy love is such I can no way repay, The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray. Then while we live, in love lets so persevere That when we live no more, we may live ever. The son of a yeoman farmer — an independent farmer who owned his own land — Taylor was a teacher who sailed to New England in rather than take an oath of loyalty to the Church of England. A selfless and pious man, Taylor acted as a missionary to the settlers when he accepted his lifelong job as a minister in the frontier town of Westfield, Massachusetts, kilometers into the thickly forested, wild interior.

Taylor was the best-educated man in the area, and he put his knowledge to use, working as the town minister, doctor, and civic leader. Modest, pious, and hard-working, Taylor never published his poetry, which was discovered only in the s.

Taylor wrote a variety of verse: His best works, according to modern critics, are the series of short Preparatory Meditations. Michael Wigglesworth, like Taylor an English-born, Harvard-educated Puritan minister who practiced medicine, is the third New England colonial poet of note. He continues the Puritan themes in his best-known work, The Day of Doom A long narrative that often falls into doggerel, this terrifying popularization of Calvinistic doctrine was the most popular poem of the colonial period.

This first American best-seller is an appalling portrait of damnation to hell in ballad meter. It is terrible poetry — but everybody loved it. It fused the fascination of a horror story with the authority of John Calvin. For more than two centuries, people memorized this long, dreadful monument to religious terror; children proudly recited it, and elders quoted it in everyday speech. Moby-Dick was the favorite novel of 20th-century American novelist William Faulkner, whose profound and disturbing works suggest that the dark, metaphysical vision of Protestant America has not yet been exhausted.

Like most colonial literature, the poems of early New England imitate the form and technique of the mother country, though the religious passion and frequent biblical references, as well as the new setting, give New England writing a special identity. Isolated New World writers also lived before the advent of rapid transportation and electronic communications. As a result, colonial writers were imitating writing that was already out of date in England.

Thus, Edward Taylor, the best American poet of his day, wrote metaphysical poetry after it had become unfashionable in England.

Colonial writers often seemed ignorant of such great English authors as Ben Jonson. Some colonial writers rejected English poets who belonged to a different sect as well, thereby cutting themselves off from the finest lyric and dramatic models the English language had produced. In addition, many colonials remained ignorant due to the lack of books. The great model of writing, belief, and conduct was the Bible, in an authorized English translation that was already outdated when it came out.

The age of the Bible, so much older than the Roman church, made it authoritative to Puritan eyes. New England Puritans clung to the tales of the Jews in the Old Testament, believing that they, like the Jews, were persecuted for their faith, that they knew the one true God, and that they were the chosen elect who would establish the New Jerusalem — a heaven on Earth. The Puritans were aware of the parallels between the ancient Jews of the Old Testament and themselves.

Colonial worlds tend to be archaic, and New England certainly was no exception. New England Puritans were archaic by choice, conviction, and circumstance. Easier to read than the highly religious poetry full of Biblical references are the historical and secular accounts that recount real events using lively details. Sewall fits the pattern of early New England writers we have seen in Bradford and Taylor.

Born in England, Sewall was brought to the colonies at an early age. He made his home in the Boston area, where he graduated from Harvard, and made a career of legal, administrative, and religious work.

Outline of the U.S. Literature

He notes little purchases of sweets for a woman he was courting, and their disagreements over whether he should affect aristocratic and expensive ways such as wearing a wig and using a coach. Such writings as women produced are usually domestic accounts requiring no special education. No account of New England colonial literature would be complete without mentioning Cotton Mather, the master pedant. The third in the four-generation Mather dynasty of Massachusetts Bay, he wrote at length of New England in over books and pamphlets.

As the s wore on into the s, religious dogmatism gradually dwindled, despite sporadic, harsh Puritan efforts to stem the tide of tolerance. The minister Roger Williams suffered for his own views on religion. Secretly warned by Governor John Winthrop of Massachusetts, he survived only by living with Indians; in , he established a new colony at Rhode Island that would welcome persons of different religions. A graduate of Cambridge University England , he retained sympathy for working people and diverse views.

His ideas were ahead of his time. He was an early critic of imperialism, insisting that European kings had no right to grant land charters because American land belonged to the Indians. Williams also believed in the separation between church and state — still a fundamental principle in America today. He held that the law courts should not have the power to punish people for religious reasons — a stand that undermined the strict New England theocracies.

A believer in equality and democracy, he was a lifelong friend of the Indians. The book also is an embryonic ethnography, giving bold descriptions of Indian life based on the time he had lived among the tribes. Each chapter is devoted to one topic — for example, eating and mealtime. Indian words and phrases pertaining to this topic are mixed with comments, anecdotes, and a concluding poem.

The end of the first chapter reads: On a visit to England during the bloody Civil War there, he drew upon his survival in frigid New England to organize firewood deliveries to the poor of London during the winter, after their supply of coal had been cut off. He wrote lively defenses of religious toleration not only for different Christian sects, but also for non-Christians. The intercultural experience of living among gracious and humane Indians undoubtedly accounts for much of his wisdom.

Influence was two-way in the colonies. For example, John Eliot translated the Bible into Narragansett. Some Indians converted to Christianity. Even today, the Native American church is a mixture of Christianity and Indian traditional belief.

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The spirit of toleration and religious freedom that gradually grew in the American colonies was first established in Rhode Island and Pennsylvania, home of the Quakers. The fundamental Quaker belief in universal love and brotherhood made them deeply democratic and opposed to dogmatic religious authority. This book, a publication of the U. Department of State, traces the paths of American narrative, fiction, poetry and drama as they move from pre-colonial times into the present, through such literary movements as romanticism, realism and experimentation.

Essayists and Poets The Romantic Period, Fiction The Rise of Realism: The Anti-Tradition American Prose, — This Kindle edition includes the full, unabridged text of the original. However, due to copyright restrictions, photographs and excerpts from certain poems that are included in the original edition are not included in this Kindle edition. Her publications include poetry and scholarship.

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Share your thoughts with other customers. Write a customer review. There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later. Kindle Edition Verified Purchase. This author is quite original in her interpretation of the periods.

I have found myself quoting her work quite a bit in my Amer Lit college class. One person found this helpful. Great resource for my American Literature class! Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers.

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