22EN605: AMERICAN LITERATURE

LECTURE III: The Colonial Period / 1492-1700

American Literature, defined traditionally as the literature of the United States, or as written
on land that would one day become the United States, has as its beginning date 1583, the year
the earliest English writing explorers started to write about the new continent. Some date the
end of the Colonial Period as early as 1763, the start of the French and Indian War, the results
of which set in motion a chain of events that led the colonies to seek independence from
Great Britain. Others set it as late as 1789, the year the U.S. Constitution went into effect.
The literary genres covered during this period can be classified below –

1) Travel writing, most often written by the explorers themselves to describe the land,
indigenous peoples, and log the exploration, starting with preparations for the journey, the
voyage, arrival and explorations in the territory and interactions with natives, and the return
to Great Britain, if one was made,
2) Historical writing; historians have written in every age since the Hebrews wrote the Old
Testament; these consist of long essays or narratives and relate tell a non-fiction account of
what transpired; usually written in the third person, and covering significant events of general
interest.
3) Religious writing, usually written by clergy in the form of journals, sermons, or
commentaries on the Bible and religious experiences,
4) Philosophy, a genre that ranges from pure metaphysical speculation, to early sociology, to
transcendentalism; written in the form of long essays,
5) Natural science writings
6) Newspaper, journalism, and political essay writing, covering most recent events to
essays and pamphlets written to persuade others to the author's opinion,
7) Poetry
8) Drama
9) Humor
10) Fiction in the form of short stories, or sketches, and novels.

(Note: Not all of these genres span the entire period, although a few do. Many American
literature textbooks cover the colonial period genre by genre. The danger in doing this is time
distortion. This period of literature spans almost 300 years, longer by far than all of the other
periods of literature put together. The other problem with covering this period by genre is that
many of its most famous writers wrote in more than one genre, so the same writer must be
considered multiple times.)

What makes the Colonial period unique from all the others is that the writers in this period
had no idea they were writing anything that could be classified as American literature. These
writers were mostly British, and all were heavily indebted to British literature writing
conventions long since established in the motherland. No other period of American literature
is as derivative of English literature as the colonial period.

Relation to English Literature. The British claimed most of the Atlantic seaboard north of
Florida as belonging to Britain soon after Columbus discovered land across the Atlantic
Ocean. Henry VII sent John Cabot to chart out the "regions or provinces of the heathen and
infidel, whatsoever they may be" as early as 1497. However, circumstances never arose for
England to make good on her claims until late during Elizabeth's reign. When England finally
did establish her first permanent settlement in 1607 in Jamestown, Virginia, and a few years
later in Massachusetts, her primary motives were:
1) the monarchical desire to expand the empire,
2) the people's longing for land to cultivate,
3) treasure and adventure,
4) a nation's desire to be rid of excess populations, such as debtors, prisoners, and
unemployed youths,
5) expand commerce through trade, and
6) freedom of religious practice.

The literature produced in the part of America known as the United States did not begin as an
independent literature. England bestowed on the earliest settlers the English language, books,
and modes of thought. England had an established literature long before the first permanent
settlement across the Atlantic was considered. Shakespeare, for example, had died only four
years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth.

For nearly two hundred years after the first English settlements in America, the majority of
the works read there were written by English authors. The hard struggle necessary to obtain a
foothold in a wilderness was not favourable to the early development of a literature. Those
who remained in England could not clear away the forest, till the soil, and contend with
Indians, but they could write the books and send them across the ocean. The early settlers
were for the most part content to allow English authors to do this. For these reasons it is
unsurprising that early American literature does not match in quality that produced in
England during the same period.

When Americans began to write in larger numbers, there was at first close adherence to
English models. For a while it seemed as if American literature would be only a feeble
imitation of these models. Beginning in the eighteenth century, that started to change and
some colonial writing was considered to have merit in its own right. The literature of England
gained something from America as well. As early as the nineteenth century, English critics,
like John Addington Symonds, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Edward Dowden, have testified
to the power of the democratic element in American literature and willingly admitted that
without a study of Cooper, Poe, and Hawthorne no one could give an adequate account of the
landmarks of achievement in fiction written in English. French critics too have always
admired Poe. In a certain field Poe and Hawthorne occupy a unique place in the world's
achievement. Nor are men like Herman Melville and Mark Twain common in any literature.

Some of the reasons why American literature developed along original lines and thus
conveyed a message of its own to the world are to be found in the changed environment and
the varying problems and ideals of American life. Even more important than the changed
ways of earning a living and the difference in climate, animals, and scenery were the
struggles leading to the Revolutionary War, the formation and guidance of the Republic, and
the Civil War. All these combined to give individuality to American thought and literature.
Elizabethan Traits. The leading men in the colonization of Virginia and New England were
born in the reign of Queen Elizabeth (1558–1603), and they and their descendants showed on
this side of the Atlantic those characteristics which made the Elizabethan age preeminent.

In the first place, the Elizabethans possessed initiative. This power consists, first, in having
ideas, and secondly, in passing from the ideas to the suggested action. Some people merely
dream. The Elizabethans dreamed glorious dreams, which they translated into action. They
defeated the Spanish Armada; they circumnavigated the globe; they made it possible for
Shakespeare's pen to mold the thought and to influence the actions of the world.

If we except those indentured servants and apprentices who came to America merely because
others brought them, we shall find not only that the first colonists were born in an age
distinguished for its initiative, but also that they came because they possessed this
characteristic in a greater degree than those who remained behind. It was easier for the
majority to stay with their friends; hence England was not depopulated. The few came, those
who had sufficient initiative to cross three thousand miles of unknown sea, who had the
power to dream dreams of a new commonwealth, and the will to embody those dreams in
action.

In the second place, the Elizabethans were ingenious, that is, they were imaginative and
resourceful. Impelled by the mighty forces of the Reformation and the Revival of Learning
which the England of Elizabeth alone felt at one and the same time, the Elizabethans craved
and obtained variety of experience, which kept the fountainhead of ingenuity filled. It is
instructive to follow the lives of Elizabethans as different as Sir Philip Sidney, William
Shakespeare, Sir Walter Raleigh, Captain John Smith, and John Winthrop, and to note the
varied experiences of each. Yankee ingenuity had an Elizabethan ancestry. The hard
conditions of the New World merely gave an opportunity to exercise to the utmost an
ingenuity which the colonists brought with them.

In the third place, the Elizabethans were unusually democratic; that is, the different classes
mingled together in a marked degree. This intermingling was due in part to increased travel,
to the desire born of the New Learning, to live as varied and as complete a life as possible,
and to the absence of overspecialization among individuals. This chance for varied
experience with all sorts and conditions of men enabled Shakespeare to speak to all humanity.
All England was represented in his plays. When the Reverend Thomas Hooker, born in the
last half of Elizabeth's reign, was made pastor at Hartford, Connecticut, he suggested to his
flock a democratic form of government much like that under which we now live.

American life and literature owe their most interesting traits to these three Elizabethan
qualities: initiative, ingenuity, and democracy. The Cambridge University graduate, the
cooper, cloth-maker, printer, and blacksmith had the initiative to set out for the New World,
the ingenuity to deal with its varied exigencies, and the democratic spirit that enabled them to
work side by side, no matter how diverse their former trades, modes of life, and social
condition.