Literature of Early America
Beginnings to 1800
 “I come again to greet and thank the League;
I come again to greet and thank the kindered;
I come again to great and thank the warriors;
I come again to greet and thank the women.
My forefathers – what they established –
My forefathers – hearken to them!”
-Iroquois Hymn
 The First Americans
 As a best guess, the first Americans, Indians, arrived
12,000-70,000 years ago.
 The Native Americans had oral literature – myths,
legends, and songs.
 European colonists reached America in the late 1500s.
 Early settlers (St. Augustine, Florida, 1565 and
Jamestown, Virginia, 1607) relied heavily on lessons
learned from Native Americans for survival.
 Puritans, Pilgrims
 The Mayflower reaches Plymouth, Massachusetts in
1620.
 Puritans, now called Pilgrims, wanted to escape the
Church of England by building their own “city upon a
hill.”
 Puritans took pride in hard work, self-discipline, and
predetermination - Created theocratic societies.
 Puritanism slowly declined before the Great Awakening
in 1720.
 Planters
 A division sets in between the northern settlements and
the southern settlements.
 The southern colonists are called planters because of
their climate, crops, social organization, and religion.
 The Age of Reason
 The Enlightenment – time period of new scientific
development by philosophers in Europe
 The ideas of the enlightenment leads to the American
Revolution.
 “Social Contract” forms basis of government.
 Push away from religion
 The Birth of a Nation
 Taxes imposed by Britain cause Americans to consider
succesion.
 1775 – the First Continental Congress sends “the shot
heard ‘round the world.”
 6 years of war followed leading to Britain surrendering
at Yorktown in 1781.
 Constitution and Bill of Rights unites the states.
 What is the relationship between literature and place?
 What makes American literature American?
 How does literature shape or reflect society?
 What was the New World’s natural environment?
 Place of wonder
 Nature of the Americas was vastly different from anything
Europeans have experienced.
 It was not Europe.
 At one with the place
 Native Americans thought people belonged to the land – land
and water gave life.
 Nature was not to be feared or overcome, but honored as the
source of life.
 What were the colonists’ attitudes toward the New
World environment?
 Land belonged to people
 Dream vs. Reality
 Dream = Theocracy
 Reality = Avoid harsh death
 Independent Place and People
 “We live in an independent place, so why aren’t we an
independent people?”
 Place taught Americans how to be Americans
 How did attitudes toward nature show up in literature?
 “Errand into the Wilderness”
 Religious p.o.v. – combat evil in an “uncivilized” place.
 Forest = wild
 Place and Nation
 “In Europe they were as many useless plants… they withered
and were mowed down by want, hunger, and war; but now by
the power of transplantation, like all other plants they have
taken root and flourished.” – Jean de Crevecoeur
 What is a theme, and how does it find expression in
literature?
 Theme – the central idea, message, or insight that a
literary work reveals.
 What were early American themes?
 Wilderness
 Community
 Individualism
 What is uniquely American about those themes?
 The Place
 New World = Garden of Eden/Enemy
 The Past
 America did not have a history of literature like Europe did.
 The Vision
 New, new, new
 New kind of nation
 What social and political forces affected early
American literature?
 Puritanism
 Self examination and spiritual insight
 The Enlightenment
 Debate and clear thinking
 The Declaration of Independence = rational argument for
independence.
 Native Americans/African Americans
 What were the major roles of early American writers?
 Writer as Oral Poet and Historian
 Writer as Preacher and Lawmaker
 Writer as Autobiographer
 “Why should you be interested in my life? What did I learn
from it? What can you learn from it?”
 1492 – Columbus lands in the Bahamas
 1499 – 20,000 die in London Plague
 1508 – Michelangelo begins painting ceiling of Sistine Chapel
 1519 – Chocolate introduced to Europe
 1565 – First permanent U.S. settlement founded; St. Augustine
 1588 – The Spanish Armada is defeated by England
 1595 - Shakespeare completes A Midsummer Night’s Dream
 1609 – Galileo builds first telescope
 1620 – Pilgrims land at Plymouth
 1642 – Civil War begins in England
 1692 – Salem With Trials
 1755 – Dictionary of the English Language
 1773 – Boston Tea Party
 1776 – Declaration of Independence
 1789 – George Washington elected first President of the United States
 Part 1: Meeting of Cultures
 The Earth on Turtle’s Back, When Grizzlies Walked Upright,
and The Navajo Origin Legend
 Of Plymouth Plantation
 (The Iroquois Constitution)
 Part 2: The Puritan Influence
 To My Dear and Loving Husband
 Huswifery
 Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God
 Part 3: A Nation is Born
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The Declaration of Independence and The American Crisis
The Autobiography and Poor Richard’s Almanack
(Speech in the Virginia Convention)
(To His Excellency, General Washington)