Early American & Colonial Period to 1776

Orally transmitted myths, legends, chants, fairy tales, humorous anecdotes, incantations, riddles, proverbs, epics, tales & lyrics of Indian culture No written literature in Indian languages & tribal cultures before the arrival of first Europeans Oral literature is diverse Quasi-nomadic hunting culture differs from stories of settled agricultural tribes Tribal variations in systems of government & religion are reflected in literature Yet a few generalizations are possible

 Reverence for nature as spiritual & physical mother Nature is alive & endowed with spiritual forces Main characters are plants, animals or totems associated with a particular tribe or individual No long standardized religious cycle Accounts of migrations & ancestors abound as do visions, healing songs, creation stories & tricksters tales

 Variety of songs like lullabies, war chants, love songs & special songs for childrens games, gambling, magic or dance ceremonials Vision songs, appearing in dreams or visions, may be healing, hunting or love songs

The Literature of Exploration

The first European record of exploration in America is in a Scandinavian language The first known contact, however, between the America & the rest of the world began with the journey of Italian Christopher Columbus Initial English attempts at colonization were disasters The first colony was set up in 1585 which disappeared with all the colonists

 The second attempt survived The literature of the period paints America as the land of riches & promises The accounts of colonization became world famous & were translated in many languages In the 17th c. pirates, adventurers & explorers opened the way to a second wave of permanent colonists who brought along their families

The early exploration literature was made up of diaries, letters, travel journals, ships logs & reports to the explorers financial backers Later it was supplanted by records of early colonies England eventually took possession of the North American colonies, the best known colonial literature is English

The Colonial Period in New England

New England: northeastern section of the United States The first Puritan colonists who settled New England exemplified the seriousness of Reformation Christianity The large initial immigration to Boston in the 1630s The high articulation of Puritan cultural ideals The early establishment of a college and a printing press in Cambridge gave New England a substantial edge Printing was established in the American colonies before it was allowed in most of England

 The puritan definition of good writing was that which brought a full awareness of the importance of worshipping God & of the spiritual dangers on earth Its style varied from complex metaphysical poetry to homely journals & pedantic religious history Some of the American literature were pamphlets and writings extolling the benefits of the colonies to both a European and colonist audience

Themes
The religious disputes that prompted settlement in America were also topics of early writing Other late writings described conflicts and interaction with the Indians Some themes remained constant: life as a test, world as an arena of battle between forces of God & evil They commonly cited Bible

 They clung to the Jewish tales, finding similarities between Jewish exodus & puritan migration Puritan poetry was highly religious in nature The poems of early New England imitate the form & technique of mother country Yet religious passion, new settings & frequent biblical references gave it a new & distinct taste They imitated writing that was already out of vogue in England as they lived before the advent of swift transportation

 They remained ignorant of English trends or fine English lyrics due to lack of books & rejection of different sects Colonial worlds tend to be archaic & New England is no exception

Literature in Southern & Middle Colonies

Pre-revolutionary southern literature was aristocratic & secular It reflected the dominant social & economic system of plantations Many southerners were poor farmers or trades people who lived no better than slaves

 The Puritan emphasis on hard work, , education & earnestness was rare Church was a focus of a genteel social life not a forum for minute examination of conscience

Poetry
American poetry, the poetry of the United States, arose first as efforts by colonists to add their voices to English poetry in the 17th century Although before this, a strong oral tradition often likened to poetry existed among Native American societies Most of the early colonists' work relied on contemporary British models of poetic form, diction, and theme

 One of the first recorded poets of the British colonies was Anne Bradstreet (16121672), who remains one of the earliest known women poets who wrote in English Edward Taylor wrote poems expounding Puritan virtues in a highly wrought metaphysical style that can be seen as typical of the early colonial period

 The narrow focus on the Puritan ethic was the dominant note of most of the poetry written in the colonies during the 17th and early 18th centuries The earliest "secular" poetry published in New England was by Samuel Danforth in his "almanacks" for 16471649 Of course, being a Puritan minister as well as a poet, Danforth never ventured far from a spiritual message

 Another distinctly American lyric voice of the colonial period was Phillis Wheatley, a slave whose book "Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral," was published in 1773 The 18th century saw an increasing emphasis on America itself as fit subject matter for its poets However, as might be expected from what was essentially provincial writing, this late colonial poetry is generally somewhat oldfashioned in form and syntax

 It deployed the means and methods of Pope and Gray in the era of Blake and Burns. On the whole, the development of poetry in the American colonies mirrors the development of the colonies themselves. The early poetry is dominated by the need to preserve the integrity of the Puritan ideals

 As the colonists grew in confidence, the poetry they wrote increasingly reflected their drive towards independence. This shift in subject matter was not reflected in the mode of writing which tended to be conservative

American Theatre
The birth of professional theater in America may have begun with the Lewis Hallam troupe that arrived in Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1752 A theater was built in Williamsburg in 1716 The Hallams were the first to organize a complete company of actors in Europe and bring them to the colonies

 The Merchant of Venice was their first performance, shown initially on September 15, 1752 Lewis Hallam, Jr., founded the American Company, opened a theater in New York, and presented the first professionally mounted American playThe Prince of Parthia, by Thomas Godfreyin 1767 In the 18th century, laws forbidding the performance of plays were passed

 In spite of such laws, however, a few writers tried their hand at playwriting. Most likely, the first plays written in America were by European-born dating back as early as 1567 No plays were printed in America until Robert Hunter's Androboros in 1714. Still, in the early years, most of the plays produced came from Europe; only with Godfrey's The Prince of Parthia in 1767 do we get a professionally produced play written by an American