EARLY AMERICAN LITERATURE
America at the first time is a wild land without inhabitants. It is a new land with a new hope for all the comers. Much people come to the virgin land that never touched with any single people together with their habits, customs, culture and civilization.
The various kinds of people come from Europe, England, French, Spain and others. The first time of their coming into the New Land building a civilization based on their own experience. The language that they used also divergent related to their own groups, tribe, state and nations. In communicating among others, they use the language that they masters. During the interaction among circumstances, they know about song, myth, prophecy, premonition, incantation, folklore, and others and later become early American literature.
The literature develops from oral literature from mouth to mouth into well shaped in the form of play, novel, and poem with different characteristics and theme based on the author experiences and the social changing in the middle of the society. Some of them expresses the real portrait of life the human being but some others like to describe the imagination of thinking that is real fiction.
A. Early American Literature Beginning
The first American literature was neither American nor really literature. According to the older understanding, the “discovery” of the Americas was a great triumph, one in which Columbus played the part of hero in accomplishing the four voyages, in being the means of bringing great material profit to Spain and to other European countries, and in opening up the Americas to European settlement. When the sails of Christopher Columbus's ships rose above the horizon on October 12, 1492, the peoples of what the Europeans would call the New World possessed their own forms of artistic verbal expression: from prayers, hymns, and myths to theatre of various kinds. But even the most advanced pre-Columbian civilizations lacked alphabetic writing, so their “literature” was exclusively oral (if one includes various mnemonic ideographs and pictographs), kept by the memory of individuals entrusted with that task and by the collectivity. A substantial number of these oral narratives were preserved, thanks to the efforts of friars, priests, chroniclers as well as native historians who learned to read and write, and the narratives' themes, characters, topics, and even metaphors have been periodically adopted by Latin American literature.
The examples of oral American Indian literature that found are lyrics, chant, myths, fairy tales, humorous anecdotes, incantation, riddles, proverbs, epics, legendary histories. The song or the poetry as the narratives present in light form and humorous one. It includes war chant, love songs, special song for children’s games, gambling, various chore, magic or dance ceremonial. The presentation of the song is usually repetitive.
Since the late nineteenth century, an increasing several numbers of aborigines oral literature has been transcribed by Native American in their own languages. It also available in the texts that can be read.
“The accurate text of American literature can be included in the American literary tradition with greater confidence and frequency. The text presented here illustrates the varying forms of literature.” (The literature of New World: 6)
This quotation shows us that the various form of literature found orally in American tradition as well as in the text writing that can be read by everyone. It can be appreciate the value of the American literature toward Native American people and also the surrounding. Therefore, American literature begins with “the orally transmitted myth, legends, tales and lyrics (always song) of Indian culture” (Spanckeren: 3).
Indian oral tradition and its relation to American literature as a whole is one of the richest work of literary. The topics also explored in American studies. The contribution of Indian contribution to American literature was greater than its believed. It contributed toward American literature in some studies especially the studies of American literature that search and analyze the developments of literature from its beginning of the story. It also influenced the development of literature there as the original forms of literature.
In the latter half of the 20th century, much work was done to recover and study pre-Columbian literature, including that part of it created in the aftermath of the European invasion. The first European poetry to be heard in the New World was most surely the ballads sung by Columbus's sailors in their settlements on the island of Hispaniola (now comprising the states of Haiti and the Dominican Republic). These romances (narrative poems with eight-syllable lines), which harkened back to the Middle Ages, continued to be composed and sung in all areas where the Spaniards settled.
B. A Literature of Experience
The literature experience of the American comes from the experience of their own life. Experiences become a keyword of intellectual discourse. It is various thinking that different from one to each other. As the central issue of renaissance thought is the conflict between experience and theory, between modern observation and ancient authority. It is known as the mark of literature exploration. The discovery of New land itself will be the product of renaissance.
da Vinci is one of the Renaissance humanists idea. He wrote “all sciences are vain and full errors that are not born of experience, mother of all certainty, and that are not tested by experienced” ( The literature of New world : 8). The unique fame that da Vinci enjoyed in his lifetime and that, filtered by historical criticism, has remained undimmed to the present day rests largely on his unlimited desire for knowledge, which guided all his thinking and behavior. An artist by disposition and endowment, he considered his eyes to be his main avenue to knowledge; to Leonardo, sight was man's highest sense because it alone conveyed the facts of experience immediately, correctly, and with certainty. Hence, every phenomenon perceived became an object of knowledge, and saper vedere (“knowing how to see”) became the great theme of his studies.
Leonardo da Vinci applied his creativity to every realm in which graphic representation is used: he was a painter, sculptor, architect, and engineer. But he went even beyond that. He used his superb intellect, unusual powers of observation, and mastery of the art of drawing to study nature itself, a line of inquiry that allowed his dual pursuits of art and science to flourish.
Literary pastoral had long symbolized with the dream of a Golden Age with the discovery of the new World. The vision of the golden age is also the vision of actual gold to explore and search the new regions and the natural phenomenon like gold and silver. It also brings the wilderness thought that bring its value.
C. Colonial Period
American literature at first was naturally a colonial literature, by authors who were Englishmen and who thought and wrote as such. John Smith, a soldier of fortune, is credited with initiating American literature. His chief books included A True Relation of … Virginia … (1608) and The general History of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles (1624). Although these volumes often glorified their author, they were avowedly written to explain colonizing opportunities to Englishmen. In time, each colony was similarly described: Daniel Denton's Brief Description of New York (1670), William Penn's Brief Account of the Province of Pennsylvania (1682), and Thomas Ashe's Carolina (1682) were only a few of many works praising America as a land of economic promise.
The earliest colonial travel account are record of the perils and frustration that challenged the courage of America’s first settlers. Attitude or intellectual orientation characterized many works of literature, painting, music, architecture, criticism, and historiography in Western civilization over a period from the late 18th to the mid-19th century. More sophisticated poetry, following Italian Renaissance meters and themes, began to be written shortly thereafter in the capitals of the viceroyalties (or vice-kingdoms) of Mexico and Peru. These cities became the centers of European culture in America. The viceroyalty comprising what is today roughly Mexico, parts of the southwestern United States, Central America was called the Viceroyalty of Nueva España (New Spain), and the one centered in Peru was the Viceroyalty of Peru. Because the vice regal capitals were organized like European courts, literary activity thrived there throughout the colonial period.
There were poetic contests, theatre, public recitations, and literary gatherings like those of the academies and universities of Europe. With the development of the printing press in the 15th century, the Spanish empire depended more and more on the written word. Writing in all areas, particularly in law and religious doctrine, became paramount in the empire's daily life. The creation of a native elite, able to write and imbued with Western culture, was crucial to the empire's functioning, so colleges and universities were founded: a college in Mexico in 1536 and a university in 1551, a university in 1538 in Hispaniola, and a university in Lima in 1551. For learning purposes, large numbers of cartillas, or alphabet cards, were shipped from Spain.
If the American wilderness did not provide a hearty welcome for the colonist, it nevertheless offered a wealth of natural resources. The immigrant that colonize American people greatly influenced whether culture, language and also the form of literature. Therefore, the positive effect of the colonization is the wealth of literature and cultural resources that beautify the new American land.
A city upon a hill : New England
Colonial American literature was produced by people who first settled a rocky and sandy coastline. The pilgrim and puritan colonists aspired to be a “city upon hill”. They want to build the spiritual conquest. Religious freedom is their goal in building the city upon a hill. City upon a hill is one model of Christian concept. They differentiate between the church and the government. In God they trust. They think, “to work is to glorify God”. In the society the make a community of love all made equal by their devotion to God. Besides that the member of the church also wanted to purify the church teaching. Hoping to built a better life by clearing the corruption on the church and a sacred belief in religion.
Native American Narrative is one of literature in early American literature. After Puritanism, the relationship between puritan and Native American became an important topic in narratives, autobiography, verse and history. The natives people in their part regarded that the natural world as interrelation one. Human, animal, plants, earth, water, sky and all natural part are the part of the life that can not be separated each other. The relationship between natives and the settler was rarely peaceful. The conflict between them was threatened to some Puritan that their city upon a hill was failing.
D. The History and the Present state of Virginia
The Indians performed the clean and tidy. The woman usually beautiful and keep their performance by caring their face their hair and their body. The men wear their cut hair after several fanciful Fashions. The Indian have their solemnities of Marriage. They allow the separation of man and woman with disagreement. Each has liberty of marrying another. As the effect of their separation, the children have a liberty to whom they will continue their life whether the father or the mother. They choose based on their affection and tendencies. But in looking after the children, the man allowing to choose first if only the children will be divided to the father and the mother. The manner of Indian in treating the young children is very strange. They keep the young warm by wearing several clothes. The manner of Indian in building their houses is very slight and cheap. They named their houses Wigwang.
Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia.
Thomas Jefferson is one of the great author and one of the great thinkers of American. He wrote letters that is regarded as a work of literature. His letter is 633 that he dedicated to the various kinds of people. He also writes the annual comment and several others writings. He was one of the authors of declaration independence. He was one of the fathers of State Virginia University. His concept of thinking is respecting the individual freedom in doing the duties to God and the duties to man. Both man and God have the right to be honored. In the society, we should respecting the different religion that we embraced without mocking each other and disturbing them. His very famous concept of religion is separating the church and the government. The citizen should embrace the free religion without fear and intimidation from others and the citizen. When the first time the church member punished the parents that rejected the baptize of the children even death as the consequences of rejecting the third offering. After the regulation is declared then, the society free to embraced the different religion from the sects. Besides the religion that is separated from the government the society should not disturb the neighbor and keep the good relationship even make them comfortable in the society.
E. The Literature of the New Republic
The declaration independence proclaims the independence in all aspect of life. The American start questing the national identity. Most of literary historian dismiss the period between 1776 1nd 1836. It was known as “sort blank of space between the Revolution and the mature work of Irving, Bryant and Cooper”. Another judge the writer of the new republic ”Blind sailors navigating the Dead sea of federalist Pessimism”. Yet between that period American writer expressed the essential features of a distinctive national literature. The literature of new republic was to establish the independence of literature identity. On the revolutionary War, the form of literature is travel narratives, religious journal, and political tracks. The structure and the theme of the writing was derivates from the British model. After the war, the form of American literature was a legendary campaign and political pamphlet. The writing around the time of the war was called “the literature persuasion”. The language that is use in the literature was more like the spoken language in order to cultivate the meaning deeply. Some of the writers devote themselves to cultivate their art.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The literature of the New world
A brief History of America
Spanckeren, Kathryn, 1994, American Literature, USA : Christopher Little
Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica 2007 Ultimate Reference Suite. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica.
Bode, Carl Dr, 1987, Highlights of American Literature , Washington DC : United States Information Agency
Holman, Hugh, 1981, A Hand Book to Literature, USA : The Bobbs-Merrill Company.
Neville, A Mark and Herzberg Max. 1958. Literature in America. New York : Rand MNally & Company
America at the first time is a wild land without inhabitants. It is a new land with a new hope for all the comers. Much people come to the virgin land that never touched with any single people together with their habits, customs, culture and civilization.
The various kinds of people come from Europe, England, French, Spain and others. The first time of their coming into the New Land building a civilization based on their own experience. The language that they used also divergent related to their own groups, tribe, state and nations. In communicating among others, they use the language that they masters. During the interaction among circumstances, they know about song, myth, prophecy, premonition, incantation, folklore, and others and later become early American literature.
The literature develops from oral literature from mouth to mouth into well shaped in the form of play, novel, and poem with different characteristics and theme based on the author experiences and the social changing in the middle of the society. Some of them expresses the real portrait of life the human being but some others like to describe the imagination of thinking that is real fiction.
A. Early American Literature Beginning
The first American literature was neither American nor really literature. According to the older understanding, the “discovery” of the Americas was a great triumph, one in which Columbus played the part of hero in accomplishing the four voyages, in being the means of bringing great material profit to Spain and to other European countries, and in opening up the Americas to European settlement. When the sails of Christopher Columbus's ships rose above the horizon on October 12, 1492, the peoples of what the Europeans would call the New World possessed their own forms of artistic verbal expression: from prayers, hymns, and myths to theatre of various kinds. But even the most advanced pre-Columbian civilizations lacked alphabetic writing, so their “literature” was exclusively oral (if one includes various mnemonic ideographs and pictographs), kept by the memory of individuals entrusted with that task and by the collectivity. A substantial number of these oral narratives were preserved, thanks to the efforts of friars, priests, chroniclers as well as native historians who learned to read and write, and the narratives' themes, characters, topics, and even metaphors have been periodically adopted by Latin American literature.
The examples of oral American Indian literature that found are lyrics, chant, myths, fairy tales, humorous anecdotes, incantation, riddles, proverbs, epics, legendary histories. The song or the poetry as the narratives present in light form and humorous one. It includes war chant, love songs, special song for children’s games, gambling, various chore, magic or dance ceremonial. The presentation of the song is usually repetitive.
Since the late nineteenth century, an increasing several numbers of aborigines oral literature has been transcribed by Native American in their own languages. It also available in the texts that can be read.
“The accurate text of American literature can be included in the American literary tradition with greater confidence and frequency. The text presented here illustrates the varying forms of literature.” (The literature of New World: 6)
This quotation shows us that the various form of literature found orally in American tradition as well as in the text writing that can be read by everyone. It can be appreciate the value of the American literature toward Native American people and also the surrounding. Therefore, American literature begins with “the orally transmitted myth, legends, tales and lyrics (always song) of Indian culture” (Spanckeren: 3).
Indian oral tradition and its relation to American literature as a whole is one of the richest work of literary. The topics also explored in American studies. The contribution of Indian contribution to American literature was greater than its believed. It contributed toward American literature in some studies especially the studies of American literature that search and analyze the developments of literature from its beginning of the story. It also influenced the development of literature there as the original forms of literature.
In the latter half of the 20th century, much work was done to recover and study pre-Columbian literature, including that part of it created in the aftermath of the European invasion. The first European poetry to be heard in the New World was most surely the ballads sung by Columbus's sailors in their settlements on the island of Hispaniola (now comprising the states of Haiti and the Dominican Republic). These romances (narrative poems with eight-syllable lines), which harkened back to the Middle Ages, continued to be composed and sung in all areas where the Spaniards settled.
B. A Literature of Experience
The literature experience of the American comes from the experience of their own life. Experiences become a keyword of intellectual discourse. It is various thinking that different from one to each other. As the central issue of renaissance thought is the conflict between experience and theory, between modern observation and ancient authority. It is known as the mark of literature exploration. The discovery of New land itself will be the product of renaissance.
da Vinci is one of the Renaissance humanists idea. He wrote “all sciences are vain and full errors that are not born of experience, mother of all certainty, and that are not tested by experienced” ( The literature of New world : 8). The unique fame that da Vinci enjoyed in his lifetime and that, filtered by historical criticism, has remained undimmed to the present day rests largely on his unlimited desire for knowledge, which guided all his thinking and behavior. An artist by disposition and endowment, he considered his eyes to be his main avenue to knowledge; to Leonardo, sight was man's highest sense because it alone conveyed the facts of experience immediately, correctly, and with certainty. Hence, every phenomenon perceived became an object of knowledge, and saper vedere (“knowing how to see”) became the great theme of his studies.
Leonardo da Vinci applied his creativity to every realm in which graphic representation is used: he was a painter, sculptor, architect, and engineer. But he went even beyond that. He used his superb intellect, unusual powers of observation, and mastery of the art of drawing to study nature itself, a line of inquiry that allowed his dual pursuits of art and science to flourish.
Literary pastoral had long symbolized with the dream of a Golden Age with the discovery of the new World. The vision of the golden age is also the vision of actual gold to explore and search the new regions and the natural phenomenon like gold and silver. It also brings the wilderness thought that bring its value.
C. Colonial Period
American literature at first was naturally a colonial literature, by authors who were Englishmen and who thought and wrote as such. John Smith, a soldier of fortune, is credited with initiating American literature. His chief books included A True Relation of … Virginia … (1608) and The general History of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles (1624). Although these volumes often glorified their author, they were avowedly written to explain colonizing opportunities to Englishmen. In time, each colony was similarly described: Daniel Denton's Brief Description of New York (1670), William Penn's Brief Account of the Province of Pennsylvania (1682), and Thomas Ashe's Carolina (1682) were only a few of many works praising America as a land of economic promise.
The earliest colonial travel account are record of the perils and frustration that challenged the courage of America’s first settlers. Attitude or intellectual orientation characterized many works of literature, painting, music, architecture, criticism, and historiography in Western civilization over a period from the late 18th to the mid-19th century. More sophisticated poetry, following Italian Renaissance meters and themes, began to be written shortly thereafter in the capitals of the viceroyalties (or vice-kingdoms) of Mexico and Peru. These cities became the centers of European culture in America. The viceroyalty comprising what is today roughly Mexico, parts of the southwestern United States, Central America was called the Viceroyalty of Nueva España (New Spain), and the one centered in Peru was the Viceroyalty of Peru. Because the vice regal capitals were organized like European courts, literary activity thrived there throughout the colonial period.
There were poetic contests, theatre, public recitations, and literary gatherings like those of the academies and universities of Europe. With the development of the printing press in the 15th century, the Spanish empire depended more and more on the written word. Writing in all areas, particularly in law and religious doctrine, became paramount in the empire's daily life. The creation of a native elite, able to write and imbued with Western culture, was crucial to the empire's functioning, so colleges and universities were founded: a college in Mexico in 1536 and a university in 1551, a university in 1538 in Hispaniola, and a university in Lima in 1551. For learning purposes, large numbers of cartillas, or alphabet cards, were shipped from Spain.
If the American wilderness did not provide a hearty welcome for the colonist, it nevertheless offered a wealth of natural resources. The immigrant that colonize American people greatly influenced whether culture, language and also the form of literature. Therefore, the positive effect of the colonization is the wealth of literature and cultural resources that beautify the new American land.
A city upon a hill : New England
Colonial American literature was produced by people who first settled a rocky and sandy coastline. The pilgrim and puritan colonists aspired to be a “city upon hill”. They want to build the spiritual conquest. Religious freedom is their goal in building the city upon a hill. City upon a hill is one model of Christian concept. They differentiate between the church and the government. In God they trust. They think, “to work is to glorify God”. In the society the make a community of love all made equal by their devotion to God. Besides that the member of the church also wanted to purify the church teaching. Hoping to built a better life by clearing the corruption on the church and a sacred belief in religion.
Native American Narrative is one of literature in early American literature. After Puritanism, the relationship between puritan and Native American became an important topic in narratives, autobiography, verse and history. The natives people in their part regarded that the natural world as interrelation one. Human, animal, plants, earth, water, sky and all natural part are the part of the life that can not be separated each other. The relationship between natives and the settler was rarely peaceful. The conflict between them was threatened to some Puritan that their city upon a hill was failing.
D. The History and the Present state of Virginia
The Indians performed the clean and tidy. The woman usually beautiful and keep their performance by caring their face their hair and their body. The men wear their cut hair after several fanciful Fashions. The Indian have their solemnities of Marriage. They allow the separation of man and woman with disagreement. Each has liberty of marrying another. As the effect of their separation, the children have a liberty to whom they will continue their life whether the father or the mother. They choose based on their affection and tendencies. But in looking after the children, the man allowing to choose first if only the children will be divided to the father and the mother. The manner of Indian in treating the young children is very strange. They keep the young warm by wearing several clothes. The manner of Indian in building their houses is very slight and cheap. They named their houses Wigwang.
Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia.
Thomas Jefferson is one of the great author and one of the great thinkers of American. He wrote letters that is regarded as a work of literature. His letter is 633 that he dedicated to the various kinds of people. He also writes the annual comment and several others writings. He was one of the authors of declaration independence. He was one of the fathers of State Virginia University. His concept of thinking is respecting the individual freedom in doing the duties to God and the duties to man. Both man and God have the right to be honored. In the society, we should respecting the different religion that we embraced without mocking each other and disturbing them. His very famous concept of religion is separating the church and the government. The citizen should embrace the free religion without fear and intimidation from others and the citizen. When the first time the church member punished the parents that rejected the baptize of the children even death as the consequences of rejecting the third offering. After the regulation is declared then, the society free to embraced the different religion from the sects. Besides the religion that is separated from the government the society should not disturb the neighbor and keep the good relationship even make them comfortable in the society.
E. The Literature of the New Republic
The declaration independence proclaims the independence in all aspect of life. The American start questing the national identity. Most of literary historian dismiss the period between 1776 1nd 1836. It was known as “sort blank of space between the Revolution and the mature work of Irving, Bryant and Cooper”. Another judge the writer of the new republic ”Blind sailors navigating the Dead sea of federalist Pessimism”. Yet between that period American writer expressed the essential features of a distinctive national literature. The literature of new republic was to establish the independence of literature identity. On the revolutionary War, the form of literature is travel narratives, religious journal, and political tracks. The structure and the theme of the writing was derivates from the British model. After the war, the form of American literature was a legendary campaign and political pamphlet. The writing around the time of the war was called “the literature persuasion”. The language that is use in the literature was more like the spoken language in order to cultivate the meaning deeply. Some of the writers devote themselves to cultivate their art.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The literature of the New world
A brief History of America
Spanckeren, Kathryn, 1994, American Literature, USA : Christopher Little
Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica 2007 Ultimate Reference Suite. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica.
Bode, Carl Dr, 1987, Highlights of American Literature , Washington DC : United States Information Agency
Holman, Hugh, 1981, A Hand Book to Literature, USA : The Bobbs-Merrill Company.
Neville, A Mark and Herzberg Max. 1958. Literature in America. New York : Rand MNally & Company
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