The Colonial Period – the Age of Faith

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.

 

Who Were These Puritans?

Puritan is a broad term, referring to any of a number of Protestant sects that sought to "purify" the established Church of England. The English Puritans, who were part of a much larger pattern of Protestant reform sweeping Western Europe, wished to return to the simple forms of worship and church organization as described in the New Testament. Because they refused to conform to the state church's beliefs and practices, the Puritans were also called "Nonconformists" or "Dissenters”. Since the time of King Henry VIII (who reigned from 1509 to 1547), the English church had been virtually inseparable from the government; the Puritans thus represented a threat to the political stability of the nation. "I will make them conform," King James I had said of the Puritans in 1604, "or I will harry them out of the land." As it turned out, it was in the end the Puritans who harried the royal family out of the land: forty-five years later, they beheaded James's son Charles I and forced Charles II into exile in France.

Even so, many Puritans suffered persecution. Some of them left England, at first for Holland. But fearing that they would lose their identity as English Christians, a small advance group of about a hundred Puritans set sail in 1620 for the New World. There they hoped to realize their dream of building a new secular society patterned after God's word.

Puritan Beliefs.

What sort of spiritual and intellectual cargo did the Puritans bring with them on the Mayflower? They were practical, intensely committed, and convinced of the Tightness of their purpose. But strangely enough, at the center of Puritan theology was an uneasy mixture of certainty and doubt. The certainty was that because of Adam and Eve's sin of disobedience; most of humanity would be damned for all eternity. Yet, though Adam's sin was damning, the Puritans were certain that God in His mercy sent His son to earth to allow some to be saved. ;

Their doubt centered on whether a particular individual was to be one of the saved or one of the damned. In theory, a person's fate was determined by God; that is, a person could do nothing to become one of the saved. In practice, though, the Puritans strove intensely for salvationand led very pious lives. This was in part because of the consequences of this question: How did you know if you were saved or damned?

Religion for the Puritans, then, was first of all a personal, inner experience. They did not believe that the clergy or the Church should or could act as an intermediary between the individual and God. Not all Puritans felt that the state should be distinct from the Church, but most of the New England colonists were strongly against the idea of a national church. Nevertheless, religious attitudes affected the government, for Puritans believed that the sinful state of humanity made governments necessary.