Lecture 5. Introduction. Formation of American Literature.

Periodization. There are 5 periods in the development of American literature:

1. Literature of the17-18^th centuries.

This period covers a time-span from the first settlement of new England to the end of the wars of Independence and American bourgeois Revolution. Here we can distinguish 2 types of American literature:

• Colonial literature;

• Literature of Enlightenment.

2. Literature of the 19^th century (up to the end of the Civil War in America). Here we can distinguish 3 trends:

• Romanticism – 1^st half of the 19^th century

• Transcendentalism

• Abolitionism – 2^nd half of the 19^th century

3. From the end of the 19^th century up to the beginning of the 20^th century

• from the end of the Civil War to the Imperialist war between America and Spain.

It is a period of critical realism.

4. Literature of the 20^th century

• 1^st half of the 20^th century;

• 2^nd half of the 20^th century.

It is a period of constant struggle between modernism and realism.

5. Modern American Literature.

The Colonial Period – the Age of Faith

The Europeans Visit the New World. The adventures came first. They landed their ships on the beaches of the unexplored continent and, sometimes fool-heartedly, marched into the wilderness. Some survived to record their adventures came out alive.

In 1528, only 36 years after Columbus first sighted that flickering fire on the beach of San Salvadore, a Spaniard named Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca landed with an expedition near the entrance to Tampa Bay, on the west coast of what is now called Florida.

De Vaca’s narrative of his incredible hardships is a gripping adventure story; it is also a firsthand account of the habits of the natives of the American wilderness – de Vaca records what the natives ate (very little), how they housed themselves, and what their religious beliefs were. De Vaca also provides the first account of some animals and plants that Europeans had never known existed. The opossum, for example, first enters the historical record with de Vaca’s narrative.

Interesting and valuable as these explorer’s writings are, they were not as important to the development of the American literary tradition as were the writings of the Puritans of the New England colonies. It was the Puritans who most powerfully influenced the course of American literature and the formation of the American imagination. In fact, much of what we now identify as “American” comes from the moral, ethical, and religious convictions of that small group of early New England settlers, who landed, in 1620, on the top of Cape Cod, just before Christmas.

Their voyage from Plymouth in southwestern England to Cape Cod in North America lasted more than two months and was fraught with disaster. The Puritans began in two ships, the Mayflower and the Speedwell, but they were forced twice to turn back. They finally had to abandon the inaptly named Speedwell, which was prone to leaks. A hired sailor on the Mayflower who had mocked and cursed the Puritan passengers died of a fever early in the voyage – evidence, wrote William Bradford, of “the just hand of God upon him”. Halfway across the Atlantic, the main beam of the Mayflower buckled in a storm, and the group almost turned back for good. But the Puritans had brought with them a large iron screw—a sort of heavy-duty jack. They straightened the beam (6pyc) with the screw, discussed the practical details with the captain, "committed themselves to the will of God," as Bradford put it, "and resolved to proceed."

Each of these attitudes, actions, and decisions is absolutely characteristic of the Puritans. They were practical, as shown by their repair of the beam. But they were also single-minded visionaries convinced of the Tightness of their cause, as shown by Bradford's comments on the sailor's death. Their real commerce was with heaven, but they were competent in the business of the world as well. The founding of the New World was a business venture as well as a spiritual one—and for the Puritans, as we shall see; the everyday world and the spiritual world were closely intertwined.