Republic of the Philippines

University of Eastern Philippines

Laoang Campus

Bachelor of Secondary Education -3

Major 13 (Survey of English & American Literature)
1st Semester, SY 2022 – 2023
Module 6 Early Periods in American Literature
Overview of the Module:
This module deals about the early periods in American literature. It includes the
examination of the cultures and literatures of the Americas from the colonial period through the
early national period of the United States, its oral genres and tradition in relation to American
literature, Indians stories, the exploration in America, the colonial period in modern England and
the literature in the Southern and Middle Colonies, and folk oral literatures.
Learning Outcomes: at the end of this module, you should:
a. recognize the early periods of American literature as relevant pieces in the current world
history and literature compendium;
b. outline the plot and literary elements of the folk literature, non-fiction prose, essays, and
novels in the Early American, American Colonial, and Revolutionary period literatures;
c. produce literary responses for the definitive selected texts under the early periods of
American literature.
Early Periods in American Literature
American literature begins with the orally transmitted myths, legends, tales, and lyrics
(always songs) of Indian cultures. There was no written literature among the more than 500
different Indian languages and tribal cultures that existed in North America before the first
Europeans arrived. As a result, Native American oral literature is quite diverse. Narratives from
quasi-nomadic hunting cultures like the Navajo are different from stories of settled agricultural
tribes such as the pueblo-dwelling Acoma; the stories of northern lakeside dwellers such as the
Ojibwa often differ radically from stories of desert tribes like the Hopi.
Still, it is possible to make a few generalizations. Indian stories, for example, glow with
reverence for nature as a spiritual as well as physical mother. Nature is alive and endowed with
spiritual forces; main characters may be animals or plants, often totems associated with a tribe,
group, or individual. The closest to the Indian sense of holiness in later American literature is
Ralph Waldo Emerson's transcendental "Over-Soul," which pervades all of life.
The Mexican tribes revered the divine Quetzalcoatl, a god of the Toltecs and Aztecs,
and some tales of a high god or culture were told elsewhere. However, there are no long,
standardized religious cycles about one supreme divinity. The closest equivalents to Old World
spiritual narratives are often accounts of shamans initiations and voyages. Apart from these,
there are stories about culture heroes such as the Ojibwa tribe's Manabozho or the Navajo
tribe's Coyote. These tricksters are treated with varying degrees of respect. In one tale they may
act like heroes, while in another they may seem selfish or foolish. Although past authorities,
such as the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung, have deprecated trickster tales as expressing the
inferior, amoral side of the psyche, contemporary scholars -- some of them Native Americans --
point out that Odysseus and Prometheus, the revered Greek heroes, are essentially tricksters
as well.
Examples of almost every oral genre can be found in American Indian literature: lyrics,
chants, myths, fairy tales, humorous anecdotes, incantations, riddles, proverbs, epics, and
legendary histories. Certain creation stories are particularly popular. In one well-known creation
story, told with variations among many tribes, a turtle holds up the world. In a Cheyenne
version, the creator, Maheo, has four chances to fashion the world from a watery universe. He
sends four water birds diving to try to bring up earth from the bottom. The snow goose, loon,
and mallard soar high into the sky and sweep down in a dive, but cannot reach bottom; but the
little coot, who cannot fly, succeeds in bringing up some mud in his bill. Only one creature,
humble Grandmother Turtle, is the right shape to support the mud world Maheo shapes on her
shell -- hence the Indian name for America, "Turtle Island."
The songs or poetry, like the narratives, range from the sacred to the light and
humorous: There are lullabies, war chants, love songs, and special songs for children's games,
gambling, various chores, magic, or dance ceremonials. Generally, the songs are repetitive.
Short poem-songs given in dreams sometimes have the clear imagery and subtle mood
associated with Japanese haiku or Eastern-influenced imagistic poetry. A Chippewa song runs:

A loon I thought it was

But it was
My love's
splashing oar.

Vision songs, often very short, are another distinctive form. Appearing in dreams or visions,
sometimes with no warning, they may be healing, hunting, or love songs. Often they are
personal, as in this Modoc song:

I
the song
I walk here.

Indian oral tradition and its relation to American literature as a whole is one of the
richest and least explored topics in American studies. The Indian contribution to America is
greater than is often believed. The hundreds of Indian words in everyday American English
include "canoe," "tobacco," "potato," "moccasin," "moose," "persimmon," "raccoon,"
"tomahawk," and "totem." Contemporary Native American writing, , also contains works of great
beauty.
Activity 1. Answer the questions below.
1. What is a Chippewa song? 2points
2. What is a Madoc song? 2 points
3. What is a lullaby? 2points
4. Write a lullaby in your locality in ne Norte Samarnon dialect. 4 points
The Literature of Exploration
Had history taken a different turn, the United States easily could have been a part of the
great Spanish or French overseas empires. Its present inhabitants might speak Spanish and
form one nation with Mexico, or speak French and be joined with Canadian Francophone
Quebec and Montreal.
Yet the earliest explorers of America were not English, Spanish, or French. The first
European record of exploration in America is in a Scandinavian language. The Old Norse
Vinland Saga recounts how the adventurous Leif Eriksson and a band of wandering Norsemen
settled briefly somewhere on the northeast coast of America -- probably Nova Scotia, in Canada
-- in the first decade of the 11th century, almost 400 years before the next recorded European
discovery of the New World.
The first known and sustained contact between the Americas and the rest of the world,
however, began with the famous voyage of an Italian explorer, Christopher Columbus, funded
by the Spanish rulers Ferdinand and Isabella. Columbus's journal in his "Epistola," printed in
1493, recounts the trip's drama -- the terror of the men, who feared monsters and thought they
might fall off the edge of the world; the near-mutiny; how Columbus faked the ships' logs so the
men would not know how much farther they had travelled than anyone had gone before; and the
first sighting of land as they neared America.
Bartolomé de las Casas is the richest source of information about the early contact
between American Indians and Europeans. As a young priest he helped conquer Cuba. He
transcribed Columbus's journal, and late in life wrote a long, vivid History of the Indians
criticizing their enslavement by the Spanish.
Initial English attempts at colonization were disasters. The first colony was set up in
1585 at Roanoke, off the coast of North Carolina; all its colonists disappeared, and to this day
legends are told about blue-eyed Croatan Indians of the area. The second colony was more
permanent: Jamestown, established in 1607. It endured starvation, brutality, and misrule.
However, the literature of the period paints America in glowing colors as the land of riches and
opportunity. Accounts of the colonizations became world-renowned. The exploration of Roanoke
was carefully recorded by Thomas Hariot in A Briefe and True Report of the New-Found Land of
Virginia (1588). Hariot's book was quickly translated into Latin, French, and German; the text
and pictures were made into engravings and widely republished for over 200 years.
The Jamestown colony's main record, the writings of Captain John Smith, one of its
leaders, is the exact opposite of Hariot's accurate, scientific account. Smith was an incurable
romantic, and he seems to have embroidered his adventures. To him we owe the famous story
of the Indian maiden, Pocahontas. Whether fact or fiction, the tale is ingrained in the American
historical imagination. The story recounts how Pocahontas, favorite daughter of Chief
Powhatan, saved Captain Smith's life when he was a prisoner of the chief. Later, when the
English persuaded Powhatan to give Pocahontas to them as a hostage, her gentleness,
intelligence, and beauty impressed the English, and, in 1614, she married John Rolfe, an
English gentleman. The marriage initiated an eight-year peace between the colonists and the
Indians, ensuring the survival of the struggling new colony.
In the 17th century, pirates, adventurers, and explorers opened the way to a second
wave of permanent colonists, bringing their wives, children, farm implements, and craftsmen's
tools. The early literature of exploration, made up of diaries, letters, travel journals, ships' logs,
and reports to the explorers' financial backers -- European rulers or, in mercantile England and
Holland, joint stock companies -- gradually was supplanted by records of the settled colonies.
Because England eventually took possession of the North American colonies, the best-known
and most-anthologized colonial literature is English. As American minority literature continues to
flower in the 20th century and American life becomes increasingly multicultural, scholars are
rediscovering the importance of the continent's mixed ethnic heritage. Although the story of
literature now turns to the English accounts, it is important to recognize its richly cosmopolitan
beginnings.
Activity 2. Answer the following questions:
1. What is the importance of the period of exploration in American literature? 3 points
2. What is the contribution of Christopher Columbus in American literature?3 points
3. In relation to number 2 question, was it really a contribution? Why or why not . 2
points.
4. What do you think the American life becomes multicultural? 2 points
The Colonial Period in New England
It is likely that no other colonists in the history of the world were as intellectual as the
Puritans. Between 1630 and 1690, there were as many university graduates in the northeastern
section of the United States, known as New England, as in the mother country -- an astounding
fact when one considers that most educated people of the time were aristocrats who were
unwilling to risk their lives in wilderness conditions. The self-made and often self-educated
Puritans were notable exceptions. They wanted education to understand and execute God's will
as they established their colonies throughout New England.
The Puritan definition of good writing was that which brought home a full awareness of
the importance of worshipping God and of the spiritual dangers that the soul faced on Earth.
Puritan style varied enormously -- from complex metaphysical poetry to homely journals and
crushingly pedantic religious history. Whatever the style or genre, certain themes remained
constant. Life was seen as a test; failure led to eternal damnation and hellfire, and success to
heavenly bliss. This world was an arena of constant battle between the forces of God and the
forces of Satan, a formidable enemy with many disguises. Many Puritans excitedly awaited the
"millennium," when Jesus would return to Earth, end human misery, and inaugurate 1,000 years
of peace and prosperity.
Scholars have long pointed out the link between Puritanism and capitalism: Both rest on
ambition, hard work, and an intense striving for success. Although individual Puritans could not
know, in strict theological terms, whether they were "saved" and among the elect who would go
to heaven, Puritans tended to feel that earthly success was a sign of election. Wealth and status
were sought not only for themselves, but as welcome reassurances of spiritual health and
promises of eternal life.
Moreover, the concept of stewardship encouraged success. The Puritans interpreted all
things and events as symbols with deeper spiritual meanings, and felt that in advancing their
own profit and their community's well-being, they were also furthering God's plans. They did not
draw lines of distinction between the secular and religious spheres: All of life was an expression
of the divine will -- a belief that later resurfaces in Transcendentalism.
In recording ordinary events to reveal their spiritual meaning, Puritan authors commonly
cited the Bible, chapter and verse. History was a symbolic religious panorama leading to the
Puritan triumph over the New World and to God's kingdom on Earth.
The first Puritan colonists who settled New England exemplified the seriousness of
Reformation Christianity. Known as the "Pilgrims," they were a small group of believers who had
migrated from England to Holland -- even then known for its religious tolerance -- in 1608,
during a time of persecutions.
 Like most Puritans, they interpreted the Bible literally. They read and acted on the text of
the Second Book of Corinthians -- "Come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the
Lord." Despairing of purifying the Church of England from within, "Separatists" formed
underground "covenanted" churches that swore loyalty to the group instead of the king. Seen as
traitors to the king as well as heretics damned to hell, they were often persecuted. Their
separation took them ultimately to the New World.
William Bradford (1590-1657)
William Bradford was elected governor of Plymouth in the Massachusetts Bay Colony
shortly after the Separatists landed. He was a deeply pious, self-educated man who had learned
several languages, including Hebrew, in order to "see with his own eyes the ancient oracles of
God in their native beauty." His participation in the migration to Holland and the Mayflower
voyage to Plymouth, and his duties as governor, made him ideally suited to be the first historian
of his colony. His history, Of Plymouth Plantation (1651), is a clear and compelling account of
the colony's beginning. His description of the first view of America is justly famous:
Being thus passed the vast ocean, and a sea of troubles...they had now no friends to
welcome them nor inns to entertain or refresh their weather beaten bodies; no houses or much
less towns to repair to, to seek for succor...savage barbarians...were readier to fill their sides
with arrows than otherwise. And for the reason it was winter, and they that know the winters of
that country know them to be sharp and violent, and subject to cruel and fierce storms...all stand
upon them with a weather-beaten face, and the whole country, full of woods and thickets,
represented a wild and savage hue.
Bradford also recorded the first document of colonial self-governance in the English
New World, the "Mayflower Compact," drawn up while the Pilgrims were still on board ship. The
compact was a harbinger of the Declaration of Independence to come a century and a half later.
Puritans disapproved of such secular amusements as dancing and card-playing, which
were associated with ungodly aristocrats and immoral living. Reading or writing "light" books
also fell into this category. Puritan minds poured their tremendous energies into nonfiction and
pious genres: poetry, sermons, theological tracts, and histories. Their intimate diaries and
meditations record the rich inner lives of this introspective and intense people.
Anne Bradstreet ( 1612-1672)
The first published book of poems by an American was also the first American book to
be published by a woman -- Anne Bradstreet. It is not surprising that the book was published in
England, given the lack of printing presses in the early years of the first American colonies. Born
and educated in England, Anne Bradstreet was the daughter of an earl's estate manager. She
emigrated with her family when she was 18. Her husband eventually became governor of the
Massachusetts Bay Colony, which later grew into the great city of Boston. She preferred her
long, religious poems on conventional subjects such as the seasons, but contemporary readers
most enjoy the witty poems on subjects from daily life and her warm and loving poems to her
husband and children. She was inspired by English metaphysical poetry, and her book The
Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America (1650) shows the influence of Edmund Spenser,
Philip Sidney, and other English poets as well. She often uses elaborate conceits or extended
metaphors. "To My Dear and Loving Husband" (1678) uses the oriental imagery, love theme,
and idea of comparison popular in Europe at the time, but gives these a pious meaning at the
poem's conclusion:
 If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee;
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye women, if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee, give recompense.
Thy love is such I can no way repay,
The heavens reward thee manifold; I pray.
Then while we live, in love let so persevere
That when we live no more, we may live ever.
Activity 3. A. Answer the question below.
1. What are the themes of the above poem? 6 points
2. Explain the 7th line of the poem. 4 points

Edward Taylor ( 1644-1729)

Like Anne Bradstreet, and, in fact, all of New England's first writers, the intense, brilliant
poet and minister Edward Taylor was born in England. The son of a yeoman farmer -- an
independent farmer who owned his own land -- Taylor was a teacher who sailed to New
England in 1668 rather than take an oath of loyalty to the Church of England. He studied at
Harvard College, and, like most Harvard-trained ministers, he knew Greek, Latin, and Hebrew.
A selfless and pious man, Taylor acted as a missionary to the settlers when he accepted his
lifelong job as a minister in the frontier town of Westfield, Massachusetts, 160 kilometers into
the thickly forested, wild interior. Taylor was the best-educated man in the area, and he put his
knowledge to use, working as the town minister, doctor, and civic leader.
Modest, pious, and hard-working, Taylor never published his poetry, which was
discovered only in the 1930s. He would, no doubt, have seen his work's discovery as divine
providence; today's readers should be grateful to have his poems -- the finest examples of 17th-
century poetry in North America.
Taylor wrote a variety of verse: funeral elegies, lyrics, a medieval "debate," and a 500-
page Metrical History of Christianity (mainly a history of martyrs). His best works, according to
modern critics, are the series of short Preparatory Meditations.
Michael Wigglesworth (1631-1705)
Michael Wigglesworth, like Taylor an English-born, Harvard-educated Puritan minister
who practiced medicine, is the third New England colonial poet of note. He continues the
Puritan themes in his best-known work, The Day of Doom (1662). A long narrative that often
falls into doggerel, this terrifying popularization of Calvinistic doctrine was the most popular
poem of the colonial period. This first American best-seller is an appalling portrait of damnation
to hell in ballad meter.
It is terrible poetry -- but everybody loved it. It fused the fascination of a horror story with
the authority of John Calvin. For more than two centuries, people memorized this long, dreadful
monument to religious terror; children proudly recited it, and elders quoted it in everyday
speech. It is not such a leap from the terrible punishments of this poem to the ghastly self-
inflicted wound of Nathaniel Hawthorne's guilty Puritan minister, Arthur Dimmesdale, in The
Scarlet Letter (1850) or Herman Melville s crippled Captain Ahab, a New England Faust whose
quest for forbidden knowledge sinks the ship of American humanity in Moby-Dick (1851).
(Moby-Dick was the favorite novel of 20th-century American novelist William Faulkner, whose
profound and disturbing works suggest that the dark, metaphysical vision of Protestant America
has not yet been exhausted.)
Like most colonial literature, the poems of early New England imitate the form and
technique of the mother country, though the religious passion and frequent biblical references,
as well as the new setting, give New England writing a special identity. Isolated New World
writers also lived before the advent of rapid transportation and electronic communications. As a
result, colonial writers were imitating writing that was already out of date in England. Thus,
Edward Taylor, the best American poet of his day, wrote metaphysical poetry after it had
become unfashionable in England. At times, as in Taylor's poetry, rich works of striking
originality grew out of colonial isolation.
Colonial writers often seemed ignorant of such great English authors as Ben Jonson.
Some colonial writers rejected English poets who belonged to a different sect as well, thereby
cutting themselves off from the finest lyric and dramatic models the English language had
produced. In addition, many colonials remained ignorant due to the lack of books.
The great model of writing, belief, and conduct was the Bible, in an authorized English
translation that was already outdated when it came out. The age of the Bible, so much older
than the Roman church, made it authoritative to Puritan eyes.
New England Puritans clung to the tales of the Jews in the Old Testament, believing that
they, like the Jews, were persecuted for their faith, that they knew the one true God, and that
they were the chosen elect who would establish the New Jerusalem -- a heaven on Earth. The
Puritans were aware of the parallels between the ancient Jews of the Old Testament and
themselves. Moses led the Israelites out of captivity from Egypt, parted the Red Sea through
God's miraculous assistance so that his people could escape, and received the divine law in the
form of the Ten Commandments. Like Moses, Puritan leaders felt they were rescuing their
people from spiritual corruption in England, passing miraculously over a wild sea with God's aid,
and fashioning new laws and new forms of government after God's wishes.
Colonial worlds tend to be archaic, and New England certainly was no exception. New
England Puritans were archaic by choice, conviction, and circumstance.
Samuel Sewall (1652-1730)
Easier to read than the highly religious poetry full of Biblical references are the
historical and secular accounts that recount real events using lively details. Governor John
Winthrop's Journal (1790) provides the best information on the early Massachusetts Bay Colony
and Puritan political theory.
Samuel Sewall's Diary, which records the years 1674 to 1729, is lively and engaging.
Sewall fits the pattern of early New England writers we have seen in Bradford and Taylor. Born
in England, Sewall was brought to the colonies at an early age. He made his home in the
Boston area, where he graduated from Harvard, and made a career of legal, administrative, and
religious work.
Sewall was born late enough to see the change from the early, strict religious life of the
Puritans to the later, more worldly Yankee period of mercantile wealth in the New England
colonies; his Diary, which is often compared to Samuel Pepys's English diary of the same
period, inadvertently records the transition.
Like Pepys's diary, Sewall's is a minute record of his daily life, reflecting his interest in
living piously and well. He notes little purchases of sweets for a woman he was courting, and
their disagreements over whether he should affect aristocratic and expensive ways such as
wearing a wig and using a coach.
Mary Rowlandson (1635-1678)
The earliest woman prose writer of note is Mary Rowlandson, a minister's wife who gives
a clear, moving account of her 11-week captivity by Indians during an Indian massacre in 1676.
The book undoubtedly fanned the flame of anti-Indian sentiment, as did John Williams's The
Redeemed Captive (1707), describing his two years in captivity by French and Indians after a
massacre. Such writings as women produced are usually domestic accounts requiring no
special education. It may be argued that women's literature benefits from its homey realism and
common-sense wit; certainly works like Sarah Kemble Knight's lively Journal (published
posthumously in 1825) of a daring solo trip in 1704 from Boston to New York and back escapes
the baroque complexity of much Puritan writing.
Cotton Mather (1663-1728)
No account of New England colonial literature would be complete without mentioning
Cotton Mather, the master pedant. The third in the four-generation Mather dynasty of
Massachusetts Bay, he wrote at length of New England in over 500 books and pamphlets.
Mather's 1702 Magnalia Christi Americana (Ecclesiastical History of New England), his most
ambitious work, exhaustively chronicles the settlement of New England through a series of
biographies. The huge book presents the holy Puritan errand into the wilderness to establish
God s kingdom; its structure is a narrative progression of representative American "Saints'
Lives." His zeal somewhat redeems his pompousness: "I write the wonders of the Christian
religion, flying from the deprivations of Europe to the American strand."
Roger Williams (1603-1683)
As the 1600s wore on into the 1700s, religious dogmatism gradually dwindled, despite
sporadic, harsh Puritan efforts to stem the tide of tolerance. The minister Roger Williams
suffered for his own views on religion. An English-born son of a tailor, he was banished from
Massachusetts in the middle of New England's ferocious winter in 1635. Secretly warned by
Governor John Winthrop of Massachusetts, he survived only by living with Indians; in 1636, he
established a new colony at Rhode Island that would welcome persons of different religions.
A graduate of Cambridge University (England), he retained sympathy for working people
and diverse views. His ideas were ahead of his time. He was an early critic of imperialism,
insisting that European kings had no right to grant land charters because American land
belonged to the Indians. Williams also believed in the separation between church and state --
still a fundamental principle in America today. He held that the law courts should not have the
power to punish people for religious reasons -- a stand that undermined the strict New England
theocracies. A believer in equality and democracy, he was a lifelong friend of the Indians.
Williams's numerous books include one of the first phrase books of Indian languages, A Key
Into the Languages of America (1643). The book also is an embryonic ethnography, giving bold
descriptions of Indian life based on the time he had lived among the tribes. Each chapter is
devoted to one topic -- for example, eating and mealtime. Indian words and phrases pertaining
to this topic are mixed with comments, anecdotes, and a concluding poem. The end of the first
chapter reads:
If nature's sons, both wild and tame,
Humane and courteous be,
How ill becomes it sons of God
To want humanity.

Activity 3.B.
1. Explain the above lines.

In the chapter on words about entertainment, he comments that "it is a strange truth
that a man shall generally find more free entertainment and refreshing among these barbarians,
than amongst thousands that call themselves Christians."
Williams's life is uniquely inspiring. On a visit to England during the bloody Civil War
there, he drew upon his survival in frigid New England to organize firewood deliveries to the
poor of London during the winter, after their supply of coal had been cut off. He wrote lively
defenses of religious toleration not only for different Christian sects, but also for non-Christians.
"It is the will and command of God, that...a permission of the most Paganish, Jewish, Turkish, or
Antichristian consciences and worships, be granted to all men, in all nations...," he wrote in The
Bloody Tenet of Persecution for Cause of Conscience (1644). The intercultural experience of
living among gracious and humane Indians undoubtedly accounts for much of his wisdom.
Influence was two-way in the colonies. For example, John Eliot translated the Bible into
Narragansett. Some Indians converted to Christianity. Even today, the Native American church
is a mixture of Christianity and Indian traditional belief.
The spirit of toleration and religious freedom that gradually grew in the American
colonies was first established in Rhode Island and Pennsylvania, home of the Quakers. The
humane and tolerant Quakers, or "Friends," as they were known, believed in the sacredness of
the individual conscience as the fountainhead of social order and morality. The fundamental
Quaker belief in universal love and brotherhood made them deeply democratic and opposed to
dogmatic religious authority. Driven out of strict Massachusetts, which feared their influence,
they established a very successful colony, Pennsylvania, under William Penn in 1681.
John Woolman (1720-1772)
The best-known Quaker work is the long Journal (1774) of John Woolman, documenting
his inner life in a pure, heartfelt style of great sweetness that has drawn praise from many
American and English writers. This remarkable man left his comfortable home in town to sojourn
with the Indians in the wild interior because he thought he might learn from them and share their
ideas. He writes simply of his desire to "feel and understand their life, and the Spirit they live in."
Woolman's justice-loving spirit naturally turns to social criticism: "I perceived that many white
People do often sell Rum to the Indians, which, I believe, is a great Evil."
Woolman was also one of the first antislavery writers, publishing two essays, "Some
Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes," in 1754 and 1762. An ardent humanitarian, he
followed a path of "passive obedience" to authorities and laws he found unjust, prefiguring
Henry David Thoreau's celebrated essay, "Civil Disobedience" (1849), by generations.
Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758)
 The antithesis of John Woolman is Jonathan Edwards, who was born only 17 years
before the Quaker notable. Woolman had little formal schooling; Edwards was highly educated.
Woolman followed his inner light; Edwards was devoted to the law and authority. Both men
were fine writers, but they reveal opposite poles of the colonial religious experience.
Edwards was molded by his extreme sense of duty and by the rigid Puritan
environment, which conspired to make him defend strict and gloomy Calvinism from the forces
of liberalism springing up around him. He is best known for his frightening, powerful sermon,
"Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" (1741):
If God should let you go, you would immediately sink, and sinfully descend, and plunge
into the bottomless gulf.... The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a
spider or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked....he looks
upon you as worthy of nothing else but to be cast into the bottomless gulf.
Edwards's sermons had enormous impact, sending whole congregations into hysterical
fits of weeping. In the long run, though, their grotesque harshness alienated people from the
Calvinism that Edwards valiantly defended. Edwards's dogmatic, medieval sermons no longer fit
the experiences of relatively peaceful, prosperous 18th-century colonists. After Edwards, fresh,
liberal currents of tolerance gathered force.
Literature in the Southern Middle Colonies
Pre-revolutionary southern literature was aristocratic and secular, reflecting the dominant
social and economic systems of the southern plantations. Early English immigrants were drawn
to the southern colonies because of economic opportunity rather than religious freedom.
Although many southerners were poor farmers or tradespeople living not much better
than slaves, the southern literate upper class was shaped by the classical, Old World ideal of a
noble landed gentry made possible by slavery. The institution released wealthy southern whites
from manual labor, afforded them leisure, and made the dream of an aristocratic life in the
American wilderness possible. The Puritan emphasis on hard work, education and earnestness
was rare -- instead we hear of such pleasures as horseback riding and hunting. The church was
the focus of a genteel social life, not a forum for minute examinations of conscience.
William Byrd (1674-1744)
Southern culture naturally revolved around the ideal of the gentleman. A Renaissance
man equally good at managing a farm and reading classical Greek, he had the power of a
feudal lord.
William Byrd describes the gracious way of life at his plantation, Westover, in his
famous letter of 1726 to his English friend Charles Boyle, Earl of Orrery:
Besides the advantages of pure air, we abound in all kinds of provisions without
expense (I mean we who have plantations). I have a large family of my own, and my doors are
open to everybody, yet I have no bills to pay, and half- a-crown will rest undisturbed in my
pockets for many moons altogether.
Like one of the patriarchs, I have my flock and herds, my bondmen and bondwomen,
and every sort of trade amongst my own servants, so that I live in a kind of independence on
everyone but Providence...
 William Byrd epitomizes the spirit of the southern colonial gentry. The heir to 1,040
hectares, which he enlarged to 7,160 hectares, he was a merchant, trader, and planter. His
library of 3,600 books was the largest in the South. He was born with a lively intelligence that his
father augmented by sending him to excellent schools in England and Holland. He visited the
French Court, became a Fellow of the Royal Society, and was friendly with some of the leading
English writers of his day, particularly William Wycherley and William Congreve. His London
diaries are the opposite of those of the New England Puritans, full of fancy dinners, glittering
parties, and womanizing, with little introspective soul-searching.
Byrd is best known today for his lively History of the Dividing Line, a diary of a 1729 trip
of some weeks and 960 kilometers into the interior to survey the line dividing the neighboring
colonies of Virginia and North Carolina. The quick impressions that vast wilderness, Indians,
half-savage whites, wild beasts, and every sort of difficulty made on this civilized gentleman
form a uniquely American and very southern book. He ridicules the first Virginia colonists,
"about a hundred men, most of them reprobates of good families," and jokes that at Jamestown,
"like true Englishmen, they built a church that cost no more than fifty pounds, and a tavern that
cost five hundred." Byrd's writings are fine examples of the keen interest Southerners took in the
material world: the land, Indians, plants, animals, and settlers.
Robert Beverley (1673-1722)
Robert Beverley, another wealthy planter and author of The History and Present State
of Virginia (1705, 1722) records the history of the Virginia colony in a humane and vigorous
style. Like Byrd, he admired the Indians and remarked on the strange European superstitions
about Virginia -- for example, the belief "that the country turns all people black who go there."
He noted the great hospitality of southerners, a trait maintained today.
Humorous satire -- a literary work in which human vice or folly is attacked through
irony, derision, or wit -- appears frequently in the colonial South. A group of irritated settlers
lampooned Georgia's philanthropic founder, General James Oglethorpe, in a tract entitled A
True and Historical Narrative of the Colony of Georgia (1741). They pretended to praise him for
keeping them so poor and overworked that they had to develop "the valuable virtue of humility"
and shun "the anxieties of any further ambition."
The rowdy, satirical poem "The Sotweed Factor" satirizes the colony of Maryland, where
the author, an Englishman named Ebenezer Cook, had unsuccessfully tried his hand as a
tobacco merchant. Cook exposed the crude ways of the colony with high-spirited humor, and
accused the colonists of cheating him. The poem concludes with an exaggerated curse: "May
wrath divine then lay those regions waste / Where no man's faithful nor a woman chaste."
In general, the colonial South may fairly be linked with a light, worldly, informative, and
realistic literary tradition. Imitative of English literary fashions, the southerners attained
imaginative heights in witty, precise observations of distinctive New World conditions.
Olaudah Equiano (Gustavus Vassa) (1745-1797)
Important black writers like Olaudah Equiano and Jupiter Hammon emerged during the
colonial period. Equiano, an Ibo from Niger (West Africa), was the first black in America to write
an autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa,
the African (1789). In the book - - an early example of the slave narrative genre -- Equiano gives
an account of his native land and the horrors and cruelties of his captivity and enslavement in
the West Indies. Equiano, who converted to Christianity, movingly laments his cruel "un-
Christian" treatment by Christians -- a sentiment many African-Americans would voice in
centuries to come.
Jupiter Hammon ( 1720- 1800)
The black American poet Jupiter Hammon, a slave on Long Island, New York, is
remembered for his religious poems as well as for An Address to the Negroes of the State of
New York (1787), in which he advocated freeing children of slaves instead of condemning them
to hereditary slavery. His poem "An Evening Thought" was the first poem published by a black
male in America.
Folk Oral Literature of the Native Americans
Native American literature, also called Indian literature or American Indian literature, the
traditional oral and written literatures of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. These include
ancient hieroglyphic and pictographic writings of Middle America as well as an extensive set of
folktales, myths, and oral histories that were transmitted for centuries by storytellers and that
live on in the language works of many.
General characteristics
Folktales have been a part of the social and cultural life of American Indian and Eskimo
peoples regardless of whether they were sedentary agriculturists or nomadic hunters. As they
gathered around a fire at night, Native Americans could be transported to another world through
the talent of a good storyteller. The effect was derived not only from the novelty of the tale itself
but also from the imaginative skill of the narrator, who often added gestures and songs and
occasionally adapted a particular tale to suit a certain culture.
One adaptation frequently used by the storyteller was the repetition of incidents. The
description of an incident would be repeated a specific number of times. The number of
repetitions usually corresponded to the number associated with the sacred by the culture;
whereas in Christian traditions, for instance, the sacred is most often counted in threes (for the
Trinity), in Native American traditions the sacred is most often associated with groups of four
(representing the cardinal directions and the deities associated with each) or seven (the cardinal
directions and deities plus those of skyward, earthward, and centre). The hero would kill that
number of monsters or that many brothers who had gone out on the same adventure. This type
of repetition was very effective in oral communication, for it firmly inculcated the incident in the
minds of the listeners—much in the same manner that repetition is used today in advertising. In
addition, there was an aesthetic value to the rhythm gained from repetition and an even greater
dramatic effect, for the listener knew that, when the right number of incidents had been told,
some supernatural character would come to the aid of the hero, sometimes by singing to him.
For this reason, oral literature is often difficult and boring to read. Oral literature also loses effect
in transcription, because the reader, unlike the listener, is often unacquainted with the
worldview, ethics, sociocultural setting, and personality traits of the people in whose culture the
story was told and set.
Because the effect of the story depended so much on the narrator, there were many
versions of every good tale. Each time a story was told, it varied only within the limits of the
tradition established for that plot and according to the cultural background of the narrator and
the listeners. While studies have been made of different versions of a tale occurring within a
tribe, there is still much to be discovered, for instance, in the telling of the same tale by the
same narrator under different circumstances. These gaps in the study of folktales indicate not a
lack of interest but rather the difficulty in setting up suitable situations for recordings.
 The terms myth and folktale in American Indian oral literature are used interchangeably,
because in the Native American view the difference between the two is a matter of time rather
than content. If the incidents related happened at a time when the world had not yet assumed its
present form, the story may be regarded as a myth; however, even if the same characters
appear in the “modern” present, it is considered a folktale. Whereas European fairy tales
traditionally begin with the vague allusion “once upon a time,” the American Indian myth often
starts with “before the people came” or “when Coyote was a man.” To the Eskimo, it is
insignificant whether an incident occurred yesterday or 50 years ago—it is past.
The importance of mythology within a culture is reflected in the status of storytellers, the
time assigned to this activity, and the relevance of mythology to ceremonialism. Mythology
consists primarily of animal tales and stories of personal and social relationships; the actors and
characters involved in these stories are also an index to the beliefs and customs of the people.
For example, the Navajo ceremonials, like the chants, are based entirely on the characters and
incidents in the mythology. The dancers make masks under strict ceremonial control, and, when
they wear them to represent the gods, they absorb spiritual strength. The Aztec ceremonials
and sacrifices are believed to placate the gods who are the heroes of the mythology.
Oral literatures
North American cultures: Arctic, Northwest Coast, and California
North American Arctic culture can be divided into two major subgroups: one culture
extending from Greenland to the Mackenzie River and the other west from that river to the
Pacific Ocean. Canadian and Greenlandic Arctic peoples are generally called Inuit; the U.S.
peoples of this region may be known as Eskimos and Aleuts or Native Alaskans. Arctic literature
embodies simple stories of hunting incidents in which the heroes are sometimes helped through
supernatural power. Other stories include themes in which people ascend to the sky to become
constellations, maltreated children become animals, and an orphan boy becomes successful.
Still others surround the exploits and priestly magic of the shamans. In the region from
Greenland to the Mackenzie River, Sedna is the highest spirit and controls the sea mammals;
the Moon is a male deity who lives incestuously with his sister, the Sun. When she discovers he
is her brother, she seizes a burning bundle of sticks and rushes away into the sky, the Moon
pursuing her.
There are many stories involving family life, as well as others that deal with the feuds
between Inuit and the Native Americans south of them.
The western Eskimos along the Pacific and Arctic coasts have the Raven cycle, a series
of tales centred on Raven, a protagonist whose role ranges from culture hero to the lowest form
of trickster. Many of the same plots and themes also occur in tales of the Northwest Coast
culture. Around some coastal villages, a story about a flood that took place in the first days of
the Earth is told. Many stories are especially intended for children and stress proper behaviour.
They are often told by young girls to younger ones and are illustrated by incising figures in the
snow or on the ground with an ivory snow knife. On the lower Yukon River, a migration legend is
told about a long journey from east to west. The usual incident that breaks up this party of
travelers is a quarrel, after which they divide into two groups, occupying separate villages, and
for years make constant war on each other. Tales of hunting begin as personal adventures but
become stylized with supernatural characters and events.
Northwest Coast
 There is greater similarity in the mythology of the various tribes along the Northwest
Coast than in other regions of North America. Collectors of folktales have gathered a long series
of stories told in the region from the mouth of the Columbia River through southeastern Alaska
into a Raven cycle. The protagonists of these stories—from south to north, Coyote, Mink, and
Raven—vary from culture hero to trickster. In each subarea the stories elucidate the origin of a
village, a clan, or a family and are regarded as the property of that group. Thus, these stories
can be used by others only through permission or, sometimes, purchase. Examples of this type
of myth are Bungling Host, Dog Husband, and Star Husband. In Bungling Host, Trickster, after
seeing his host produce food in various ways (e.g., letting oil drip from his hands), fails to imitate
the magic methods to procure food and barely escapes death. In Dog Husband, a girl has a
secret lover who is a dog by day and a man by night. When she gives birth to pups, she is
deserted by her tribe. She then destroys her children’s dog skins, and they turn human and
become successful hunters. In some versions, parents lose all their sons to a monster, and,
when a new baby is born, it grows rapidly, kills the monster, and restores the brothers. Star
Husband, another widely known myth, relates the story of two girls sleeping outdoors who wish
the stars would marry them. They ascend to the sky, marry the stars, and experience a series of
remarkable adventures.
Among the Kwakiutl of Vancouver Island, the mythology is represented in an elaborate
series of dances that illustrate characters and incidents with masks, puppets, and other
mechanical devices. The principal events during the winter ceremonial season, these
ceremonies include initiation into the secret societies, the highest of which is the so-called
Cannibal Society; members of this society recount ancient stories of cannibalism but, contrary to
some accounts, do not practice cannibalism themselvesThe attitude of the Northwest Coast
Indians toward animals is expressed in rituals such as the first salmon ceremony and in the
ceremonial treatment of the bear. When the first salmon of the spring run is caught, it is
ceremonially cleaned and placed on a clean mat or a bed of fern leaves. It is welcomed with an
address of thanks and promised good treatment. The entrails are wrapped in a mat and thrown
into the river so that they can return to the land in the west where the salmon can tell how well
he was treated. The salmon is carried to the house by a selected group—children, women only,
or the family of the successful fisherman—and is roasted and eaten by the selected group, or a
morsel may be distributed to each village resident. The bear is never killed wantonly. When
seen, it is addressed in terms of kinship, an attitude that is shared by a variety of cultures.
California
The many small tribes of California exhibit more unity in their mythology than is present
in many other features of their culture. In the north-central area, the Kuksu cults enact the myths
of the creator and the culture hero with Coyote and Thunder as the chief characters. In southern
California, in ceremonies of the Chungichnich cults, contact with the highest god is achieved by
smoking datura or jimsonweed, which produces hallucinations of animals. The boys initiated into
the cults regard the animals as their guardian spirits. This concept relates the cult activity with
the most fundamental feature of American Indian religion: the concept of the individually
attained guardian spirit.
Activity 4. Answer the questions below. 5 points each
1. Discuss the oral literature in America.
2. Was it similar to that of the Philippine oral literature?
The Capture and Release of Captain John Smith , Summary & Analysis
Summary
The Capture and Release of Captain John Smith is a section of The Generall Historie of
Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles (1624). Smith was an English colonist who settled
in Jamestown, the first permanent English colony in North America. He was captured while on a
mission to make contact with Native Americans with whom the colonists could trade. The
colonists lacked resources and needed to trade for food in order to get through the winter. The
account of Smith's capture and release begins with a description of the circumstances that led a
group of Native Americans to pursue and capture Smith.
The text reports that "the savages"—meaning the Native Americans who lived near the
English colony of Jamestown—had captured a colonist called George Cassen. From
questioning Cassen, the Native Americans had found out which direction Smith had traveled.
Smith is then pursued by 300 bowmen, led by "the King of Pamaunkee," a term Smith uses to
refer to the leader Opechankanough (also called Opechancanough). The Native Americans, on
their search, come across two more colonists, named Robinson and Emry. They are killed with
arrows.
The Native Americans finally come across Smith. He uses a Native American guide, who
had been part of his exploring party, as a human shield. The Native American pursuers do not
approach him as a result. Smith tries to return to his boat. Wading in the waters of a creek,
however, he becomes very cold and throws away his weapons. Unable to defend himself and
overcome by cold, he is captured. The Native Americans then warm him up. Smith demands to
see Opechankanough and gives Opechankanough one of his items, a compass.
Smith records that the Native Americans are amazed by the compass. He says they
marvel at the movements of the compass fly and needle. Smith uses the compass to
demonstrate scientific facts about the world to his captors. He tells them that Earth is round, that
it revolves to cause the cycle of day and night, and that the world contains many nations and
peoples.
Captivity at Orapaks
The text describes how John Smith is taken to Orapaks, a community of "but only thirty
or forty hunting houses made of mats," which can be taken down and moved like tents. The
women and children of the town stare at Smith as he is paraded through the settlement.
The Native American warriors dance and cry out as they return home. The warriors are
described as wearing fox or otter skin on their arms, having red paint on their bodies, and
carrying a club, a bow, and a quiver of arrows. Tied to their heads, the warriors wear a dried bird
from which hang "a piece of copper, a white shell, a long feather, with a small rattle." The
warriors perform three dances.
After the dances are over, Smith is taken to a house. He is guarded by "thirty or forty tall
fellows." A great amount of food, primarily bread and venison, is brought before him. Smith does
not feel well and does not eat much of the meal, and the leftovers are stored in baskets. At
midnight, Smith is given more food, but he still does not eat much. This is repeated at dawn, at
which time the Native Americans eat all that is left and offer Smith fresh food. The quantity of
food is so great that Smith remarks he thinks the Native Americans may be fattening him up to
eat him. Smith reports that he is offered a gown by a person called Maocassater in order to
protect him from the cold. This is given as compensation for "some beads and toys" that Smith
had traded to Maocassater upon his arrival in Virginia.
 The text describes how, two days later, a man tries to kill Smith "for the death of his
son." The guards prevent the attempt. Smith is then taken to try to heal the son, who is gravely
ill. He tells the Native Americans that in Jamestown he has something that could help and asks
them to let him retrieve it. The Native Americans refuse to let him go and instead make plans to
attack Jamestown. They ask Smith for advice on how to attack the settlement, offering him "life,
liberty, land, and women" in return.
Smith provides the Native Americans with plans of the fort at Jamestown and tells them
how they should approach it to avoid the defenses, which include "mines, great guns, and
engines." The text states that the Native Americans are frightened by Smith's descriptions, but
they set out on their expedition anyway. When the fort's soldiers come out to challenge them,
the Native Americans retreat. Nevertheless, they return again later and receive goods from the
fort.
Rituals at Pamaunkee
Smith is then taken to Pamaunkee. There, he is "entertained ... with most strange and
fearful conjurations." The text describes the rituals of the Native Americans. A fire is lit in a
longhouse (a house constructed of wooden poles, usually weatherproofed with bark), and Smith
is asked to sit. A "great grim fellow" enters the longhouse, "all painted over with coal mingled
with oil" and wearing the skins of snakes and weasels and feathers. The man begins a ritual in
which he chants in "a hellish voice." The man surrounds the fire with "a circle of meal" while
chanting, at which point he is joined by "three more such like devils." These men are painted in
a mixture of black and red paint, with their eyes painted white. These men begin a dance and
are then joined by three more dancers. The assembly then sings a song.
After the song is over, the chief priest places "five wheat corns" on the ground. The
priest then begins to speak while "straining his arms and hands with such violence that he sweat
and his veins swelled." The priest and his followers repeat this process several times until the
fire is surrounded by corn, and they also add small sticks. The priests stay with Smith, and none
of them eat during the day. It is only at night that they all feast together. This continues for three
days, at which point Smith is told that the ritual is intended to determine if Smith wishes them
harm or not.
The priest explains that the corn, meal, and sticks around the fire signify the Native
Americans' understanding of the world. They believe it to be flat and round, with them at the
center. Smith is brought a bag of gunpowder, and the text describes how the Native Americans
intend to plant the gunpowder like a crop.
Taken Before Powhatan
After more feasting with the king and others in town, Smith is taken to Meronocomoco,
the place where Powhatan resides. Smith describes Powhatan as an emperor, a term he uses
to indicate Powhatan's status as the highest leader. Smith is brought before Powhatan, who sits
on a bench before a great fire and wears a robe made of raccoon skins. Powhatan is
accompanied by adolescent girls on either side, and two rows of men and two rows of women
behind him. Smith is brought water to wash his hands by a person he calls the Queen of
Appamatuck.
After Smith is feasted in what he calls "the best barbarous manner," the gathered
leaders and Powhatan decide what to do with him. Two large stones are brought, and Smith is
seized and placed with his head on the stones. Men are ready to use their clubs to kill him when
Pocahontas, "the King's dearest daughter" lays her own head on Smith's to halt the execution.
Powhatan orders the execution attempt to cease, the text reports, and Smith is allowed to live
and told to make hatchets for Powhatan and "bells, beads, and copper" for Pocahontas. The
text notes that the Native Americans thought that Smith could make all the different kinds of
objects he possesses, just as they themselves can. Smith comments that among the Powhatan,
even a "king" makes his own clothes, shoes, bows, and arrows and also hunts and grows crops,
just like other members of the society.
Release of John Smith
The text reports that two days after the halted execution Smith is taken to a house in the
woods. He is left alone until Powhatan and 200 of his warriors arrive. Powhatan informs Smith
that he and Smith are now friends. As Powhatan's friend, Smith is to return to Jamestown and
make a deal with the colonists. They are to send Powhatan two cannons and a millstone (a
stone used to grind up grain). In return Smith will receive "the country of Capahowosick" and be
treated as a son by Powhatan.
Smith is sent back to Jamestown with Native American guides. The text reports that
Smith was afraid that the guides were really there to kill him, but this does not happen. They
arrive at the fort, and Smith shows the Native Americans "two demi-culverings" (a type of
cannon). Smith demonstrates how to fire the cannons, which frightens the Native Americans.
When they recover themselves, they take the weapons and the millstone back to Powhatan.
The text reports that "once in four or five days" Pocahontas and her attendants bring Smith
provisions that prevent many from starving in Jamestown.
Activity 5. Answer the questions below. 5 points each
1. Explain John Smith's Mission and Capture.
2. Discuss John Smith's Perspectives and Purposes.
3. Describe the following
a. Openchakanough
b. Powhatan
c. Pocahontas
Summary:
American literature is literature predominantly written or produced in English in the
United States of America and its preceding colonies. Before the founding of the United States,
the Thirteen Colonies on the eastern coast of the present-day United States were heavily
influenced by British literature. The American literary tradition thus is part of the broader tradition
of English-language literature. A small amount of literature exists in other immigrant languages.
Furthermore, a rich tradition of oral storytelling exists amongst Native American tribes.
American literature does not easily lend itself to classification by time period. Given the
size of the United States and its varied population, there are often several literary movements
happening at the same time. However, this hasn't stopped literary scholars from making an
attempt.
End of Module 6.
Reference:
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=Early+Periods+in+American+Literature
https://usa.usembassy.de/etexts/oal/lit1.htm
https://www.coursehero.com/lit/The-Capture-and-Release-of-Captain-John-Smith/plot-summary/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_literature
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=t+is+the+oral+lietrature+in+america
Prepared by:
Luisito P. Muncada, DALL, JD
Course Professor

Disclaimer: Learning activities in this module were culled out from the internet for instructional purposes
only.