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0. How to Use This Book This book is like a telephone book.

If you do not phone somebody, there is no point reading a telephone book. If you do not read the literary texts, there is no point reading this book either. When you study, take notes, i.e. copy this book in your own words. On the pages of your notes, leave free space for your comments that you will make on second thoughts, especially after reading the literary texts, other histories, and literary criticism. Also, read something else about the same author or text, especially when you like it; try not to limit yourself to this book. Try to group authors and works into categories, e.g. genres (drama, fiction, poetry), or themes (women, history, Blacks), or regions (North, South, Mid-West, West). You can try to group on separate sheets of paper, and use different colors of paper, and pin the sheets on the wall. Come back to your notes. Copy and expand them. Make a record of your reading. Read and reread the texts that you like, and try to find similar ones. To find them, you will obviously have to read a lot of text that you do not like. Record those unwanted texts, too. Finally, this book includes several attempts at a map of American literature. Make your own map. 1. Colonial Period or Early American Literature (from 1493 till the end of 17th century) 1776 to 1820) Diversity of cultures. There has never been a single American literature. From the beginning, it is necessary to describe several literatures that developed concurrently. The territory of todays United States was large enough for several separate cultures: Native American nations (all over the continent), Spanish (Florida), French (Louisiana), and Dutch (New York) colonizers, English colonizers (mostly Virginia, English Catholics in Maryland, or all sorts of religions in Pennsylvania), and the small but exceptional settlement of the Puritans in Massachusetts (New England). All these diverse cultures developed in the place which today is called the United States; but does it mean they are all American? Or is there a single, diversified culture? Diversity of genres. In this chapter, there are difficulties with genres. The obvious division between fiction, poetry, and drama does not work, for two reasons. First, the Native American cultures did not really have this division, because the division is European: what is the ghost dance, for example? Is it drama or poetry? Is it epic or lyric? Second, some modern genres did not exist before the 17th century, most importantly there was no novel and short story (i.e.

there was no fiction). Thus, until the 18th century, there was no American novel (or any fiction) and no drama. Instead, American literature consisted mostly of nonfiction and poetry. Nonfiction consisted of religious writings (sermons, treatises), history (chronicles, narratives), personal journals, and geographical descriptions. There were also narratives (Native American narratives, or Puritan captivity narratives), but they were not meant to be fictional. As for poetry, it was mostly religious, satirical or epic, both among Native Americans and among Christian colonizers. Finally, it is difficult to talk about lyrical poetry as we know it today; there was much more constraint and rhetoric in texts about emotions. This is because there was no convention of writing openly and direcly about emotions, and possibly, people did not have the kind of emotions we know today. For these reasons, it was only in the 19th century that American literature can be divided into genres we read today. Prose. Literature of Native American cultures. Before European colonists arrived, American literature was created by Native Americans. Since most of it was not written down, it survived only indirectly, transmitted orally until the 19th and 20th centuries (when it was recorded or written down, or when it is retold now by living Native Americans). Also, brief and vague passages in contemporary texts by European colonists, who encountered Indians and tried to record their literature with varying degree of interest and fidelity, give some idea of what that literature might be like, but this earliest American literature remains a mystery, and possible reconstructions are based on conjecture and texts recorded later. For instance, a modern anthology of American literature begins with creation stories and trickster tales of different Native American cultures. The Iroquois Creation Story and Pima Stories of the Beginning of the World Trickster tales include those in the Winnebago Trickster Cycle and The Bungling Ghost, a trickster tale created by the Koasati nation. A trickster is an important mythic figure in American Indian cultures. It is a malicious God-like being, able to work wonders, change sex, help or deceive humans. A trickster is a combination of wonder with vulgarity, intelligence with recklessness, masculinity with femininity, maliciousness with humor; the combination is a bit (but only a bit) similar to malicious gods in European mythologies, e.g. Hermes or Loki. Creation stories and trickster tales, however, were not recorded before the 19 th century; discussing them as the earliest examples of American literature is a conjecture and reconstruction.

American prose in Spanish, French and Dutch. From the beginning of colonization, English was not the only European language used in the territory of todays United States. In the 16th, 17th, and 18th century, several texts were produced in Spanish, French, Italian, and Dutch. In these languages, early American literature consists mostly of travelogues, i.e. descriptions made by explorers of the new (for them) continent. The earliest of such text were written in Spanish by Christopher Columbus (1451-1506), whose letters to Luis de Santangel (1493) and to Ferdinand and Isabela (1503) initiated the European dreams about a new life in America. lvar Nez Caseza de Vaca (c. 1490-1558) wrote an account of Panfilo de Narvezs unsuccessful Spanish expedition to Florida and the coast of Bay of Mexico: no permanent settlement was established, and the travelers perished or survived with great difficulty in the land unknown to them. A similarly unsuccessful expedition commanded by Hernando de Soto was recorded by Garcilaso de la Vega (1539-1616) in The Florida of the Inca (1605). Other than Spanish, important travelogues were written by Samuel de Champlain (c. 1570-1635), who traveled along the Mississippi valley and in todays Canada, and by Dutch settlers in todays New York, for instance by Adriaen Van der Donck. American prose in English (without the Puritans). Like in other languages, first English texts were travelogues. One of the first and most famous American travelogues was written by John Smith (1580-1631) who explored Virginia, the first English colony in North America. Smith went to Virginia in 1607 and after his return published A True Relation of Such Occurrences and Accidents of Note as Have Happened in Virginia (1608). His account is one of the first books about America in English. Smiths major work, General History of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles (1624), describes the difficult first years of English settlement in Virginia (Jamestown), including the famous romantic account of Pocahontas and her affection for Smith. Although he was not a Puritan, he also wrote several descriptions of New England. Travelogues are often difficult to distinguish from fantastic accounts of happiness and prosperity of American colonies; such texts were designed to advertise settlements and attract new colonists. For instance, Thomas Mortons New English Canaan (1637) was a halffantastic account of happy life in Mortons small colony in New England (affluence, little work, maypole dancing and singing, fraternizing with Indians). Mortons colony was disbanded, and its leader arrested and sent back to England by the Puritans, supposedly because of their contempt for lax morality of the settlement. The episode was recalled in American literature in the 19th century, by Nathaniel Hawthorne in his tale The Maypole of Merry-Mount (1837). Among similar colonial authors there are John and Ann Cotton in

Virginia, George Alsop (?-1666) in Maryland, and John Graves in Pennsylvania. They represented different English colonies in America, with their different religious and cultural backgrounds. Many of those authors would also include poetry, or write journals, but they are all overshadowed by the most significant (and largest) literary culture in English colonies in the 17th century, which was developing in the northern colonies, i.e. in New England, most importantly in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The colonists who lived there are (quite generally) called Puritans. Puritan culture in America. In 1620 the first group of English religious dissenters (Episcopalians) arrived in America from England. They emigrated because of religious persecution and discrimination at home; they separated from the Church of England. Instead of settling in Virginia, they sailed to New England, to Massachusetts Bay in the north and landed at Plymouth, about forty miles south of todays Boston. Another settlement of religious dissenters, Massachusetts Bay Colony, was established in 1629 in the area of todays Boston and Salem. The settlers at Plymouth did not call themselves Puritans, and many of the colonists in Massachusetts Bay were not Puritans either. Traditionally, however, all those people have been put together in the bag called Puritan culture (of New England). What is peculiar about Puritans is that most of them were literate (because most of them anxiously read the Bible), and that they produced more printed literature than any other early colonial settlement. They did not only write geographical descriptions, but kept personal journals, wrote (and printed) sermons, religious tracts, histories, and poems. The reason for this was their religion. The Puritans were fanatical religious believers, whose version of Christianity is difficult to understand for most people today. It was a radical Calvinism based on the doctrine of infinite corruption of human beings: nothing people did could save them from eternal punishment in hell. God, however, in his infinite grace decided to save some people, selected for reasons known only to him. To those people, God sent providences, or signs of grace, such as good luck or good weather. Obviously, there were signs of Gods wrath as well. Quite expectedly, Calvinist religion created a lot of anxiety among its believers: everyone was anxious to know whether or not he or she is among the select few who will be saved. To find out, Puritans relied on introspection, examining their souls, the word of God (i.e. the Bible), and on interpretation of the world in search of signs of grace. But, if you look for signs of grace in the world, you start to perceive objects and events as symbols of Gods will: for

instance a terrible storm becomes a symbol of Gods anger, or a recovery from illness becomes a symbol of Gods good will. Interpretation of symbols relied on good knowledge of the Bible, because current events were compared to biblical ones. Puritans were among those few people who genuinely believed that events in books (mostly the Bible) are magically linked to real life; if you knew the book, you knew Gods will. Puritans searched for analogies between their history (including everyday life) and biblical events. When they found an analogy, they wrote about it: the New Canaan (America), the City Upon a Hill (Massachusetts Bay Colony), the Root of Church and Commonwealth (family), the Lost Tribes of Israel (Native Americans). The world was a book; it was interpreted through another book. Being people of books, Puritans created a lot of printed word (as opposed to oral literatures), including the first book printed in what today is the United States (in 1640, it was a translation of the biblical Book of Psalms). To conclude, Puritan literature is characterized by anxious introspection and symbolic reading of the world, concurrent with symbolic reading of the Bible. Most critics believe that these two qualities are also present among many American authors in the 19th century, and even in the 20th century. Puritan prose consists of histories, sermons, philosophical and religious writings, personal journals, non-fictional narratives. Among the Puritan histories, the first and most famous was written by W i l l i a m B r a d f o r d (1590-1657), leader (and governor) of the colony at Plymouth. Bradford's history is a journal, which he kept between 1620 and 1647. It was not published until 1856 (in England) and 1900 (in America). Today it is known as Of Plymouth Plantation. Bradfords journal includes several images which entered American national mythology: religious persecution of the dissenters in England, their pilgrimage to America, the heroic struggle of survival in the colony, the first Thanksgiving, and signing of the Mayflower Compact. Bradford famously describes his community as the Pilgrims, who left England in search of freedom (in 1608 they went to the Netherlands, and only in 1620 to America). Thus, the Pilgrims allegedly anticipated the Declaration of Independence (1776) and the struggle for freedom during the American Revolution (1775-1783). Another of Bradford's famous images, the signing of the Mayflower Compact (i.e. a community governance contract signed above their ship, The Mayflower) is said to anticipate American democratic constitution (1787). The first Thanksgiving was a celebration of the first harvest in 1621, when the Pilgrims survived with help from the Wampaoag tribe of Native Americans. (It was not the first American thanksgiving). This episode is an example (one of many) of Puritan religious imagination, because Bradford describes the harvest as a providence, a proof of God's grace, i.e. a sign from God. Bradford interprets various everyday

events in a similar way, and points out to analogies between everyday events and Biblical ones. He also frequently points out to similarities between the Pilgrims and Israelites (in the Bible), as if history of the colony repeated God's plan known from biblical history. In this way, Bradford elevates his everyday experience and his history to the level of eternal symbols of God's grace and wrath; events become symbols of God's will. Among many Americans, this way of describing the world has continued until today. Other Puritan historians include J o h n W i n t h r o p (1588-1649), E d w a r d J o h n s o n (1598-1672), N a t h a n i e l M o r t o n (1613-1686), and C o t t o n M a t h e r (1663-1728). John Winthrops A History of New England (published only 182526) is, like Bradford's book, a journal kept by the leader (many times elected governor) of the Massachusetts Bay Colony between 1630 (arrival in America) and 1649, the year of his death. Apart from chroniclelike descriptions of the settlements history, Winthrops work also includes his reflections on political issues of the Puritan colony, e.g. the philosophical conflict between Gods order and individual liberty. Edward Johnson wrote Wonder-Working Providences of Zion's Saviour in New England (1654). Like Winthrop, he describes history as a set of signs given by God (providences) and the Puritans as Gods chosen people. Like Bradford, both authors search for analogies (correspondeces) between Biblical history and current events. This way of writing combines detailed description of everyday life with a a spiritual, symbolic meaning, so that mundane events are seen from an eternal perspective. Later in the 17th century, numerous historians described wars with Indians and expansion of the colony in similar terms. Cotton Mathers Magnalia Christi Americana; or The Ecclesiastical History of New England (1702) is one of the greatest and most remarkable of all Puritan histories, written at the time when Puritan culture in America was already becoming obsolete. It includes historical account of the colonys expansion, as well as biographies, a history of the Harvard College (the first universitylike institution in English colonies in America), descriptions of Indian tribes, and reflections on the rise of Puritan religion in America. Sermons were probably the most important genre of Puritan literature. Many would be printed, sold (and bought!) as posters or pamphlets. Moreover, many authors were not Puritan ministers of religion. In accordance with Puritan symbolic imagination, sermons traced analogies between the Bible and current events, and showed parallels between the Bible and history of Puritan settlements. Consequently, every sermon started with a short (one sentence) passage from the Bible, and then analyzed the passage symbolically. The Bible fragment was usually part of the reading done during religious service on that day, but many sermons were not delivered during religious services, but at important public events, or entirely on their own

right. In one of the most famous sermons, The Model of Christian Charity (1630) by J o h n W i n t h r o p (1587/8-1649), the governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony compares the settlement to a City upon a Hill, i.e. observed and admired by the rest of the world. Winthrop is indirectly quoting from the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew, where Christ addressed crowds with the first Christan sermon; the people who followed Christ in this biblical episode were among the first Christians. Thus, Winthrop compared (or equated) the Puritan settlement with the beginnings of Christian faith, as known from the Bible. The image became immensely popular with Americans, many of whom consider themselves to be an exceptional nation, as different from the rest of the world as the first Christians allegedly were when they listened to Christ. Other very well known sermon writers include the Mather dynasty: R i c h a r d M a t h e r (1596-1669), his son I n c r e a s e M a t h e r (1639-1723), and the grandson C o t t o n M a t h e r (1663-1728), who all were ministers of religion, scholars, and authors of (hundreds) of pamphlets and books apart from sermons, R i c h a r d B a x t e r (1615-1691), and R o g e r W i l l i a m s (c. 1604-1683). Paradoxically, the most famous sermon was written when the Puritan religion was declining, or becoming more liberal, i.e. in mid-18th century. That sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God (1741) was written and preached by J o n a t h a n E d w a r d s (1703-1758); it will be discussed in the next chapter. Philosophical and religious writings. These philosophical (theological) books are largely forgotten today. Many of them could be described as extended sermons, and were published as short and popular tracts. However, numerous Puritan books were long, major philosophical studies of history, education, linguistics, ethics, and science. The authors have already been mentioned as sermon writers and historians (but there were many others). For instance, R o g e r W i l l i a m s (c. 16041683) wrote a linguistic treatise about the Narragansett language, A Key into the Language of America (1643), and I n c r e a s e M a t h e r (16391723) is the author of An Essay for the Recording of Illustrious Providences (1684), which is a systematic (almost scientific) classification of natural phenomena. Personal journals and non-fictional narratives were predecessors of literary fiction, i.e. the novel and short story, which did not exist in America before the 18th century. Often it is difficult to distinguish between a personal journal and historiography, e.g. John Winthrops history of the colony at Plymouth has been described above as a historical work (historiography), but it is formally a journal. Apart from Bradford and John Winthrop, famous personal journals were written, among others, by Cotton Mather (16631728), and Samuel

Sewall (16521730). Cotton Mathers Diary (published only in the 20th century, 1911, 12) is a record of his spiritual state, i.e. a chronicle of an introspective search for God. Diary of Samuel Sewall, 16741729 (first published 18781882) combines religious introspection with a keen, human interest in everyday life with its small comforts, for instance Sewall describes his several courtships. Apart from travelogues, histories, journals and diaries, nonfictional narratives are among the most important prose works produced in the colonies. The narratives are either autobiographies or personal accounts of interesting and terrible events, such as wars or travels. Many of these were the so called Indian captivity narratives, of which the first and most famous one was written by M a r y R o w l a n d s o n (c. 16351678). The Sovereignty & Goodness of God (1682) is beginning of a long title (runs through several lines) of the book best known under the final lines of it, as Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson. The book describes Rowlandsons terrible adventures as a prisoner of war (or captive) taken by Indians, immediately became very popular with readers and became one of the most famous of all early American books. Being a Puritan, Rowlandson interprets her plight as a sign, or symbol, of Gods will, and constantly points out to analogies between her story (captivity, Indians, deaths, suffering) and the spiritual world of Biblical stories (God, devils, Christs passion, martyrdom). But she also introduces the theme of perilous adventure in the wilderness, which has become one of the central elements of white American mythology in the future, even today. Poetry. The first printed book published in English in America was poetry: it was a rhymed translation of the Book of Psalms. The Whole Book of Psalms Faithfully Translated into English Metre (1640), also known as the Bay Psalm Book, was an attempt to translate the Biblical book into rhymed English verse, so that it would be more accessible and easier to sing. The book was immensely popular and became part of American religious culture. There were seventy subsequent editions in the 17th and 18th centuries, and the book is still in print today. As for original poetry, the Puritans were the first among English-speaking colonists to write it (a lot of it); for instance Edward Johnson included several poems in his Wonder-Working Providence, and wrote an epic about history of the Puritan colony in New England. Puritan imagination, i.e. searching for analogies between mundane events and God's eternal designs, produced a peculiar kind of poetry. Like in prose, the poets saw ordinary events and objects as symbols (or analogies) of the eternal world they believed in. Consequently, their poetry was descriptive (some critics would say objective), attentive to detail, but at the same time it was metaphysical since objects and details were mere symbols of spiritual reality. The same

applied to poetic introspection; Puritan poets were introspective, but their inner life was for them another sign from God, another symbol. When they wrote about their feelings and personal lives, they interpreted them as wonderful signs from God, as if their lives were meticulously guided by God. This kind of thinking determined peculiar formal qualities of Puritan poetry: reliance of symbolism and metaphor (analogy), anxious introspection, descriptive mode, combination of mundane images with spiritual and religious themes. These qualities persisted among well known American poets as late as in the 19th century (Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman) and even in the 20th century. Paradoxically, modern poetical experiments in America were (and are) similar to these earliest examples of American poetry. The best known Puritan poets were A n n e B r a d s t r e e t (c. 1612-1672), M i c h a e l W i g g l e s w o r t h (1631-1705), and E d w a r d T a y l o r (c. 1645-1729). Anne Bradstreet's collection, The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America1 (1650) was published in England, but can be regarded as the first poetry book written in America (Bradstreet emigrated in 1630). An extended edition, Several Poems (...) By a Gentlewoman in New England (1678), includes some of her best known poems. Bradstreet, who belonged to the top tiers of colonial society, was an eurudite, acquainted with contemporary intellectual (religious) concerns and with poetic forms (stanzas, rethorical figures, stock images). This is especially visible in her first poems, e.g. The Four Monarchies, based on the Bible, Plutarch, James Ussher's christian chronology, and sir Walter Raleigh's descriptions of America. At the same time, Bradstreet's poetry has all the qualities of Puritan poetry described above. Her best known poem, Contemplations, describes nature as a manifestation of God's glory, with very specific metaphorical images (the sunset, landscape, animal and plant life) viewed as symbols of God's will and design of the world. Many of Bradstreet's poems are personal and introspective, e.g. To My Dear and Loving Husband, Upon the Burning of Our House, or Before the Birth of One of Her Children, but introspection and description of personal life is presented in terms of Puritan imagination: the poet's inner and personal life is guided by God, and thus becomes a symbol of a wider spiritual reality. Michael Wigglesworth, unlike Bradstreet, was very popular and famous as poet in his lifetime. The Day of Doom (1602), his best known work, is a description of the darkest side of
Like most books in her time, Bradstreets collection has a long title which fills the entire title page (original spelling preserved as faithfully as possible): The Tenth Muse Lately sprung up in America, or: Several Poems, compiled with great variety of VVit and Learning, full of delight. Wherein especially is contained a compleat discourse and descriptions of The Four Elements, Constitutions, Ages of Man, Seasons of the Year. Together with an Exact Epitome of the Four Monarchies, viz. The Assyrian ,The Persian, The Grecian, The Roman. Also a Dialogue between Old England and New, concerning the late troubles. With divers other pleasant and serious Poems. By a Gentlewoman in those parts. Such titles are usually abbreviated today, which is a shame. Most books mentioned in this chapters (e.g. Bay Psalm Book, or Rowlandsons captivity narrative) have titles like that. The practice of using long titles died out only in the 19th century.
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Puritan belief: Christ returns to the Earth, saves the selected few, and condemns the rest to eternal torment in hell (the poem includes graphic descriptions). Wigglesworths poem is one of many texts (sermons, personal narratives) which demonstrate that Puritan imagination did not only search for beautiful analogies between the material world and spiritual eternity, but also gave a tragic dimension to human existence, with most people condemned to inescapable and eternal suffering. This, too, would become a continuing American theme in the future. Edward Taylors poetry was not published in his lifetime, and the manuscripts remained in archives until they were discovered in the 1930s. Taylor never wanted to share his poems with the public, because he treated poetry as a spiritual exercise which prepared him for his service as a Puritan minister of religion (i.e. not a government minister but an equivalent of a Catholic priest). He wrote the poems in preparation for sermons, and for a spiritually better, more intensive and authentic experience of the religious services he gave to his congregation. For these reasons, like Puritan personal journals, Taylors poetry is very introspective and intimate. It records an anxious introspective search for God in the soul of the narrative I. These poems, grouped together in manuscripts as two series of Preparatory Meditations were written between 1682 and 1725. They usually consist of six stanzas of six lines, and are preceded by a quotation form the Bible (which would also be the theme of Taylors sermon for a given month). In a profusion of beautiful images, Taylor records his meditation of a Biblical line and his quest for God in his own soul; the range of introspective themes includes sin, religious ecstasy, inadequacy of poetry (and language), love, grace, and human uncertainty about Gods will. Because of the Puritan obsession with analogies and correspondences between the word and the world, Taylors poetry is made of very complex stylistic figures (i.e. similes, metaphors, or ingenious arrangements of lines and letters). Those complex figures were supposed to show analogies between very ordinary images and their eternal, spiritual meanings. For instance, Meditation 42 (First Series) (1691/1939) opens with an image of golden apples and precious stones, stored in a chest of Gods love, stimulating delight and appetite: the imagery is at the same time sensual and spiritual, and in both ways it is intensively beautiful. Then, suddenly the chest is compared (in a metaphor) to the human heart, which is closed by the rusty lock of sin: the imagery, apart from being intensive, is also arranged in figures, based on surprise and elaborate concepts (conceits), not unlike the Metaphysical poetry in England, created earlier in the 17 th century by English poets such as John Donne and George Herbert. Taylors other elaborate images and figures include Upon a Wasp Chilled with Cold (?/1960) and Housewifery (?/1939), in which mundane images of weaving utensils acquire spiritual meanings as symbols (analogies) of human virtues.

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