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    National Specificity of American Literature

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    The document provides an overview of the periods of American literature from Native American literature starting around 20000 BC to the present day. It discusses some of the key genres and works from different periods including exploration journals, Puritan religious works, captivity narratives, poems, pamphlets, and political writings that established American independence and identity. The beginnings of American literature sought to separate from European influences while also needing tradition and models to develop distinctive works.

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    National Specificity of American Literature

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    34 views25 pages
    The document provides an overview of the periods of American literature from Native American literature starting around 20000 BC to the present day. It discusses some of the key genres and works from different periods including exploration journals, Puritan religious works, captivity narratives, poems, pamphlets, and political writings that established American independence and identity. The beginnings of American literature sought to separate from European influences while also needing tradition and models to develop distinctive works.

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    The document provides an overview of the periods of American literature from Native American literature starting around 20000 BC to the present day. It discusses some of the key genres and works from different periods including exploration journals, Puritan religious works, captivity narratives, poems, pamphlets, and political writings that established American independence and identity. The beginnings of American literature sought to separate from European influences while also needing tradition and models to develop distinctive works.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pptx, pdf, or txt
    34 views25 pages

    National Specificity of American Literature

    Uploaded by

    Иван
    The document provides an overview of the periods of American literature from Native American literature starting around 20000 BC to the present day. It discusses some of the key genres and works from different periods including exploration journals, Puritan religious works, captivity narratives, poems, pamphlets, and political writings that established American independence and identity. The beginnings of American literature sought to separate from European influences while also needing tradition and models to develop distinctive works.

    Copyright:

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    National Specificity of

    American Literature
    Periodization
    Native-American Literature (20000 B.C. - )
    Exploration Period (1492-1607)
    Colonial Period (1607-1765)
    Revolutionary Period (1765-1790)
    Early National Period (1775-1828)
    Romantic Period (1828-1865)
    The Age of Transcendentalism (1836-1860)
    Realism (1865-1900)
    Naturalism (1900-1914)
    Modern Period (1914-1939)
    Harlem renaissance (1920s-1930s)
    Lost Generation (1920s)
    Beat Writers (1950s)
    Postmodern or Contemporary (1940-present)
    The Beginning of
    American Literature
    Native-American Literature (20000 B.C. - )

    the myths, songs, legends and stories created by Aztec,


    Cherokee and many other tribes

    It had no influence on the rising American literature, but it


    starts to be really influential nowadays.
    Exploration Period: 1492-1607

    The earliest writings include:


    diaries,
    traveling books,
    Letters

    The first settlers and their descendants kept the language of


    the relatives and friends whom they left in Europe and
    shared their literary heritage.
    Colonial Period (1607-1765)
    Historical, religious and didactic literature

    Genres:

    Tracts
    Polemics
    Journals
    Narratives
    Sermons
    Poetry
    Tracts and Pamphlets

    A tract is a short article, usually in a pamphlet form,


    expressing a strong opinion on a religious, moral, or
    political subject in order to try to influence people's
    attitudes

    A pamphlet is a very thin book, with a paper cover, which


    gives information about something
    Captain John Smith
    “A True Relation of …
    Virginia” (1608) – a
    pamphlet giving the earliest
    first-hand account of the
    settlement. It is a business
    report and it includes an
    account of the founding of
    Jamestown.

    Americans have adopted him


    as a folk hero.
    Mrs. Mary Rowlandson

    “The Sovereignty and Goodness


    of God: Being a Narrative of
    the Captivity and Restoration
    of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson”

    Mrs. Rowlandson shows the


    danger in which the settlers
    lived, their contempt for
    Indians, their dependence
    upon the Bible for support and
    their actual treatment during
    such enforced captivities.
    “A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration
    of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson”

    “… the dolefullest night that ever my eyes saw. Oh the


    roaring, and singing, and dancing, and yelling of those black
    creatures in the night, which made the place a lively
    resemblance of hell… There remained nothing to me but
    one poor wounded Babe, and it seemed at present worse
    than death, that it was in such a pitiful condition, bespeaking
    Compassion, and I had no refreshing for it, nor suitable
    things to revive it.”
    Anne Bradstreet
    “The Tenth Muse, Lately
    Sprung Up in America”
    “Exact Epitome of the Four
    Monarchies”
    “Four Elements,
    Constitutions, Ages of Man,
    and Seasons of the Year”

    Her poems are piously witty,


    informed by Puritanism, and
    reveal intense domestic
    emotions.
    Contemplations

    When I behold the heavens as in their prime,


    And then the earth (though old) stil clad in green,
    The stones and trees, insensible to time,
    Nor age nor wrinkle on their front are seen;
    If winter come, and greeness then do fade,
    A Spring returns, and they more youthfull made;
    But Man grows old, lies down, remains where once he’s laid.
    Rev. Michael Wigglesworth

    “The Day of Doom; or, a Poetical Description of the


    Great and Last Judgment”
    “Meat out of the Eater; or, Meditations concerning the
    Necessity, End, and Usefulness of Affliction unto God’s
    Children”

    His works support the Holy Bible and add the Calvinistic
    dogmas of eternal punishment.
    Jonathan Edwards
    “From my childhood up, my mind had been full of objections
    against the doctrine of God’s sovereignty, in choosing whom he
    would to eternal life, and rejecting whom he would to eternal life,
    and rejecting whom he pleased; leaving them eternally to perish,
    and be everlastingly tormented in hell. It used to appear like a
    horrible doctrine to me. But I remember the time very well, when I
    seemed to be convinced, and fully satisfied, as to this sovereignty of
    God…. I have often, since that first conviction, had quite another
    kind of sense of God’s sovereignty than I had then. I have often
    since had not only a conviction, but a delightful conviction. The
    doctrine has very often appeared exceeding pleasant, bright, and
    sweet. Absolute sovereignty is what I love to ascribe to God. But my
    first conviction was not so.
    Jonathan Edwards
    The first instance that I remember of that sort of inward,
    sweet delight in God and divine things that I have lived
    much in since, was on reading those words, Now unto the
    King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be
    honour and glory for ever and ever, Amen. As I read the
    words, there came into my soul, and was as it were
    diffused through it, a sense of the Divine Being….
    Jonathan Edwards
    Not long after I first began to experience these things, I gave
    an account to my father of some things that had passed in my
    mind. I was pretty much affected by the discourse we had
    together; and when the discourse was ended, I walked abroad
    alone, in a solitary place in my father’s pasture, for
    contemplation. And as I was walking there, and looking up on
    the sky and clouds, there came into my mind so sweet a sense
    of the glorious majesty and grace of God, that I know not how
    to express. I seemed to see them both in a sweet conjunction;
    majesty and meekness joined together; it was a sweet and
    gentle, and holy majesty; and also a majestic meekness; an
    awful sweetness; a high, and great, and holy gentleness.”
    Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

    “The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one
    holds a spider, or some loathesome insect, over the fire,
    abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked; his wrath towards
    you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of
    nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes
    than to bear to have you in his sight”
    Jonathan Edwards
    “His Thoughts on the Revival of
    Religion”
    “Dissertation on the Nature of
    Virtue”
    “Freedom of Will”
    “Original Sin Defended”

    In his “Personal Narrative” one sees


    his intense absorption in the idea of
    God’s infinite will. The community
    gave way to a wave of emotionalism
    and morbid belief in God’s absolute
    justification in condemnation.
    Benjamin Franklin
    “Autobiography”
    “Poor Richard’s
    Almanac”

    He was the first fully self-


    made Man of the American
    Enlightenment. Combining wit
    and morality, ingenuity and
    clarity, force and fancy, the
    best of his essays are models
    of literary expression.
    Poor Richard’s Almanac
    "Three may keep a Secret, if two of them are dead.“

    "Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy wealthy and
    wise.“

    "Don't throw stones at your neighbours, if your own windows


    are glass.“

    "Well done is better than well said.“

    "Make haste slowly."


    Alexander Hamilton
    “A Full Vindication of the
    Measures of the Congress, from
    the Calumnies of their Enemies”
    “A Farmer Refuted”

    He urged the encouragement of


    manufacturing to provide a reliable
    market, and the protection of infant
    industries by import duties. These
    measures tended to strengthen the
    federal government at the expense
    of states and to ally it with
    moneyed interests.
    Thomas Jefferson
    “A Summary View of the Rights
    of British America, Set Forth in
    Some Resolutions Intended for
    the Instruction of the Present
    Delegates of the People of
    Virginia now in Convention”

    As a member of the Continental


    Congress, he was almost wholly
    responsible for the spirit and
    phrasing of “The Declaration of
    Independence”
    Philip Freneau
    “On the Conqueror of
    America Shut up in
    Boston”
    “General Gage’s Soliloquy”
    “Pictures of Columbus”

    He wrote a lot of patriotic


    and satirical poems which
    confirmed him the title of
    “the poet of the American
    Revolution”
    Features of the Early American Literature

    American literature wanted to tear all the ties between the


    old world and the new one.

    They needed tradition and models.


    Features of the Early American Literature
    The establishment of colleges

    The appearance of libraries

    The appearance of woman-readers

    English language of communication

    The publication of the 1st newspapers

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