1. American Literature
Origin and Development

2.  THE COLONIAL PERIOD (1607 – 1775)
 THE REVOLUTIONARY AGE (1765 – 1790)
 THE EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD (1790 – 1820)
 THE AMERICAN RENAISSANCE (1820 – 1865)
 THE REALISTIC PERIOD (1865 – 1900)
 THE NATURALIST PERIOD (1900 – 1914)
 THE MODERN PERIOD (1914 – 1945)
 THE BEAT GENERATION (19445– 1960)

3. The Unsettlement of Europe brought about the
settlement of America

4.  The Spanish explorer Christopher Columbus’s voyage
in 1493 to the Americas began the exploitation of
native populations by the European Imperial powers.
 Europeans used their technological weaponry
(gunpowder and steel) to conquer the region. They
were aided in this by a host of diseases from the Old
World against which early Americans had no immune
resistance.

5.  Spain, Portugal, France, Holland, Sweden starting
exploring the New World.
 England were already world power and did not see any
easily transportable resources to transport to their
county and also were hesitant after the disappearance of
their Roanoke colony failure. So they thought the use
of resource and people was not sustainable.

6.  Inhabitants of the land that is now USA, Writers were
actually citizens of other countries
 Colonial period
 Columbus discovered America in 1492, lasted till
1760’s and 1770’s
 1765 the year of the first stamp act.
 British misusing the colonies and creating discontent
among the colonists.

7.  The native cultures found in the New World displayed a
variety of language social customs, creative expressions
compared to three dozen languages, common religion and
European nations. Native people were more diverse.
 They relied on oral tradition of chants, songs and spoken
narrative sometimes referred to as ‘orature’.
 Literature came from the word “littera” which means
written, the oral form was included as literature much later.
 Red Indians were brutally suppressed and killed, were
called savage and primitive denied everything – benefit of
education, voting and civilisation.

8.  Discovery of the New World was not one sided.
Cultures of the New World and the Old World impacted
and collided with each other.
 New world was a distinct culture on its own
 Immigrants of Europe came with their own cultures and
languages with interaction with the native American
cultures.
 Had new professions and new ways of life to survive in
the New World. Established cultures and some
professions because some professions from the Old
World did not fit in the New World.

10.  John Smith arrived in 1607, and set up Jamestown.
 America was the place John Smith had dreamed of his
whole life, there his character, his determination, and
ambition had propelled him to the top of society.
 he pointed the way for others, who were drawn by the
dream that opportunity was there for anyone who dared
seize it. Smith founded more than a colony. He gave
birth to the American Dream.

11.  It also afforded opportunities to writers like John Smith
who were born in European underclass to reshape the
possibilities of colonial life away from hereditary
privilege in favour of merit, talent and effort.
 Captain John Smith could be considered the first
American author with his works: ‘A True Relation Hath
Happened in Virginia’ (1608) and ‘The General
Historie of Virginia, New England, and The Summer
Isles’ (1624)

12.  Printing pressed were in Boston, Cambridge (M.A),
New York, Philadelphia, Annapolis- so the American
colonies became the leaders in printed literature, but
not a lot of American literature to print but had the
freedom to print whatever they choose and where ever
they choose to.
 Some of the American literature were pamphlets and
writings extolling the benefits of the colonies to both a
European and colonist audience.

13.  Reformation of Europe Martin Luther
 Calvin followers of Calvin who went to America and
this became the religion of America
 The orthodox Catholics and the reformists (Protestants)
 Europe sided with the medieval Catholicism of the
Church of Rome. Protestants were in defiance of the
Church of Rome, and at the time of Henry VIII set up
their own Anglican Church of England. Started in 1607
and continued to the 17th and 18th C.
 Europeans set up cities and cleared up forests
(frontiers) and set up industries this took up about 200
years.

14.  America culturally was divided into three parts- New
England, Middle Colonies and South Districts.
 Puritan Calvinists set up society after the world of God.
Committed a lot of crime and killed many people.
 The Middle Colonies were Quaker dominant, they were
pacifists, rationalist and humanitarian. Not as staunch
Christians as the Puritans. They were peaceful and did
not kill anyone.
 South Districts were occupied by the peasants who
cleared up the land for agriculture, they were the main
participants in the Civil War in 1865, because they
were landlords who did not want to abolish slavery at
the time of Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln won the war and
slavery was abolished.

15.  Literature in three segments with very distinct
characteristics-
 -North had Puritan influence- based on the Bible, concept
of free will, fallen man by birth as man is a sinner so has to
redeem himself according to God’s will.
 - Middle Quakers had different writing, wrote on slavery
system and to treat slaves as humans. Believed in liberalism
which was different philosophy than that of Puritans and
Calvinists. The Quakers were pacifists, humanitarian and
liberal. They were the backbone of America as they set up
all the industrial, cultural and educational institutions in
America.
 - Third Southern Conservative, long time conservative,
literature by Cotton Mahers wrote about histories of its own
states, cities, as chronicles and histories.

16.  These were three cultures producing three different
literatures before their independence. Before
independence there was a small group of pioneer
novels who wrote about the rough life the American
settlers lived and the problems they faced, their
confrontations with the native Indians.

17.  Boston because of its proximity to England was more
developed whereas the south was backward. The
puritan settlers and the pilgrim fathers from England
settled in Boston. Boston became the spiritual capital of
New England. Religion was so dominating that they
were not allowed to write freely of their own will.
Puritans and the Calvinists did not permit the writing of
any other literature. Only the Quakers wrote freely.

18.  Printing pressed were in Boston, Cambridge (M.A),
New York, Philadelphia, Annapolis- so the American
colonies became the leaders in printed literature, but
not a lot of American literature to print but had the
freedom to print whatever they choose and where ever
they choose to.

19.  Patriotism – were proud of their culture, proud of their
uniqueness,
 Needs as a sea faring people, small country needed to
have lands and agriculture.
 Longing for land and wealth
 Permanent English settlements were in Jamestown
1607 modern day Virginia
 Plymouth 1620 modern day Massachusetts
 Jamestown economic reasons, came in three small
ships which took five months, 100 male settlers, from
which 59 gentlemen who were unaccustomed to hard
work so almost starved. Because of being unused to
hard labour work struggled for the first few years.

20.  Due to lack of local labour force the Spanish began
importing Africans.
 Slavery existed in all the colonies. Not a lot of debate
about it.
 Used the Bible as a justification (because the Bible had
stories with slaves)
 Descriptions of slaves being happy and content so not
need to change
 Biological inequality
 Rescued from Pagan cultures so justified

21.  Europeans set up cities and cleared up forests
(frontiers) and set up industries this took up about 200
years.
 Challenges to puritan narrative
 Poetry at the service of the formation of American
nation
 Franklin and American revolution
 Thomas Jefferson ( 1724- 1826)

22.  Europe was trying to conquer the New World.
 Believed in the myth of Eden
 William Cranshaw- Virginia was almost like the promised
land, the immigrants who followed the old testament were
the Israelis.
 Economic and political reasons for colonisation but on the
surface showed as though was religious reasons, so
economic and political motives were hidden by religion.
 “The journey of Coronado” 1904 but from 16th C the land
and the scale of the land survey very important. Europe of
the old world not much space, but here was a vast expanse
of land it felt to the newcomers like heaven. The story of
America is multicultural between different traditions,
conflict and collision. Any uniformity was not there.

23.  “Plymouth Plantation” by William Bradford what lies
behind interpreting the events. Facts rather than fiction.
 Thomas Morton satirical attack on the Puritans.
 Every Puritan narrative always criticizes because of cruelty
to the native Americans. We find huge brutality and
persecution.
 Cotton Maher “Magnalia Christie Americana” or the
Ecceslestial History of New England, is the epic puritan
consolidate a new identity, looked at it as if it were on an
epic scale. Journey to the promised land.
 Samuel Sewall- 1652-1730- Puritanism from a personal
private side without compromising his values “The Selling
of Joseph a Memorial” all men sons of Adam and co- heirs,
against inhuman practise of slavery.
 “the Travel Journals of Sarah Kimble Knight” gossip, and
beauty of the American landscape, becomes a part of the
American identity.

24.  Benjamin Franklin , inventor and master essayist
believed in “self- made man. This idea was very
important part of the American Dream. It depends on
who I am but what I can do”. He attacked violence
against native Americans in “A Narrative of the Late
Massacres” and the superstitions of women and witch
craft in “A Witch Trial at Mount Holly”. He satarised
slave traders, one of the three Americans who signed
the treaty that ended the war.
 -Crevecoeur (1735-1813)- the American is a new man
who moves away not valued because of who they were
related to but valued because of what they did.
 Democracy was only available to the white man and
not to white woman and slaves.

25.  Thomas Paine “In Common Sense” argued in Enlightenment
spirit- simple facts, plain arguments and common sense “The
Rights of Man” against hereditary monarchy.
 Age of Reason- religion as irrational
 Thomas Jefferson- departing from the country not by chance but
by choice.1776, drafted the Declaration of Independence.
Tension in the way in which American nation of equality but also
had inequality.
 Abigail Adams- “All Men are created equal” explicitly exclude
women and implicitly the native Americans and slaves.
 Judith Sargent Murray “On the Equality of the Sexes”, attention
to women’s suffering because of denial of education .
 Africa was Eden because frightened of being eaten by savages
who were whites reversal of gaze by OLando Equatrinao.
 There were voices against slavery, patriarchy, and there were
various kinds of writings both fiction and non fiction. The word
‘Man’ or ‘men’ were used in a sense of including everyone but in
reality did not include everyone. Tried to hide social and cultural
exclusion.

27.  Corpus literary works produced in the English language in the U
S. Books were not taken seriously constantly looking back to the
UK trying to write the same way as England, not independently.
Their culture and economics dynamisms, socio political cultural
dynamisms of the US. The growth of history and the radical
development of the US shaped the literature of the country. Huge
change took place, agents of change production of American
literature began with the American revolution.
 Pilgrim fathers were persecuted, early history was puritanical.
Americans refused to pay taxes to the British monarchy they
called for no taxation without representation. As there were no
American representatives in the British parliament.
 Military conflict under George Washington’s leadership winning
the war and there by establishment of a state.

28.  James Fennimore Cooper ‘Leather Stocking’
indigenous American hero, as the Americans did not
have their own hero, or mythology so they invented
their own hero.
 English settled in the East and conquered westwards,
towards the western boundaries. Tribals were frontier
men, wrote about an invented hero Nutty Bumbo.

29.  American Rennaisance term given by F.O.Matthiessen ,
because of rebirth of the American nation. The first
birth being the settlement of the British and the Dutch.
Renaissance about the ‘devotion’ of the five writers to
the possibility of democracy. Democracy was an all
consuming idea, a reaction.

30.  Transcendentalism going beyond the rationalism of the
18th C, the main writers being Emerson, Thoreau,
Whitman, Hawthorne and Fuller. A new nation of
national consciousness. Belief in the unity of the world
and God. Result of late flowering of the European
Romanticism. Concord village attracted all literary
figures.

31.  Emerson created the idea the American scholars are to
be inspired by nature, ideal figure for Americans to
follow spate from English and European. Trying to
construct American national identity. Thoreau in
‘Walden’ gave the insight to the self discovery, live in a
wooden cabin and refused to pay taxes.

32.  Whitman was a poet of democracy wrote only one
book with several sections which deal with advocacy of
democracy, feminism, equal rights, he set a trend for
American to follow.

33.  American poets who were from the privileged families
who had had a university education and then had
returned to teach in the universities.
 Longfellow- American poems about a local hero, not
from European origin.
 James Russel Lowell-funny and suitable criticism of
the American literature he criticised his fellow
contemporaries.
 Oliver Wendell Holmes celebrated America. Rights of
the individual where they spoke to God directly without
the church to mediate.

34.  Anti slavery poem from white Americans, sympathetic
to anti slavery movement. Not only political activists
but also poets and writers.
 Margaret Fuller important because wrote about women
prisoners and insane. Wrote about the rights of women,
necessity of women to come out in public places and to
have jobs.

35.  Nathaniel Hawthorne and Melville were novelists and poets but
also wrote short stories, short story was invented and widely
practised in America. Encouraged the next generation to write
short stories. The best short stories were written in a society
which is not rigid of heirarchial.
 Edgar Alan Poe is regarded as the Father of Detective Fiction.
 Harriet Beecher Stowe a former slave wrote ‘ Uncle Tom’s
Cabin’ .
 Phase of realism- between romanticism of earlier period and the
realistic period a border line period is called local colour
movement. Because of the size of America travelling was a
problem, the East and the West had a huge difference and gap.
Local writing was very important as they wrote about their own
experience and their own perception of life. Mark Twain shows
the reality of life, against industrialised, materialistic, American
lives in pursuit of materialism and lack values.

36.  Naturalism- literary representative of determinism,
associated with miserable, realistic depictions of lower
class life. Imagined society as Godless, out of control,
used naturalism to relate dot society.
 In the 19th C Americans were confident, stronger,
American literature left behind all of its European
hangover.

37.  America gradually became the world and economic
power. While Europe was impoverished different from
America, it was benefitted from the war.
 Political writing discussed social and business
corporation
 Experimentation in style and form joined the new
freedom in subject matter
 American writers expressed their disillusionment
following the wars

38.  Progressive political movements- after WWI,the
Flappers , young women who were pleasure seeking,
wealthy in the 1920’s, women felt liberated that they
never felt before different in how the women behaved
before the first world war and after was a drastic
change. Captures the restless, pleasure hungry, defiant
mood of the 1920’s. Expressed best in Scott
Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gastsby”, the tendency of the
youth’s golden dreams to dissolve in failure and
disappointment.

39.  American history reengagement, powerful attempt by
writers for illusion against reality. What we imagine as
American Dream, is not that way.
 The way money, wealth, youth, maturity, beauty, fun
and economic classes were important, led to the rise of
political consciousness.
 Also loneliness, marriage, family which was a revival
of engagement with the environment. What the cold
war did to America.
 Depression era literature- was blunt and direct, in its
social criticism

40.  Economy of America collapsed, fun, music, the ten
year partying from 1919-1929 suddenly ended with the
stock market crash. Business and companies closed,
unemployment. Americans were reduced to begging on
the streets, which was shown all over Russia to tell
them the result of capitalism. Used as a communist
propaganda.

41.  Referred to French capital Paris, after the First World
War, roughly in the 1920’s working and reading French
Literature. They felt lost though living as expats and
explored the themes of alienation, change and
confronted people’s despair, fears and disillusionment.

42.  affected by WW I and WW II, compared to the
devastation of Europe, America was not affected.
 fear of communism- communist hating country. State
tried to keep communism away. There was anti-
communist bias.
 beginning of the cold war- after the end of WW II,
1945, the allies united and a curtain descended between
UK, USA and Russia, i.e between the capitalist and the
communist countries.

43.  African American writers- were called Harlem writers,
because most of them came from New York’s Harlem,
which was predominantly occupied by African
Americans. Race specific emotions were expressed.

44.  Increased population, the baby boomers in late 1940’s , after the American
troops returned
 Lingering racial tension after slavery and reconstruction
 Economic development and changes
 Rise of youth culture
 Fear of eroding traditions, disappearance of old ways of life
 Modern writers are known to use the theme of alienation and
disconnectedness
 Frequent use of irony and understatement experimentation with new
literature, in fiction and poetry. Use of stream of consciousness, interior
monologue/ dialogue. Trying to created a unique style, rise of ethnic and
women writers.
 Drama the playwrights used inward looking and outward looking
approach. Being politically engaged was looking outwards whereas when it
dealt with psychology it was inward looking.

45.  The term Beat has several theories, one of them being ‘Beatified’
that is a state of divine bliss, holy or spiritual state of upliftment.
Beat writing was generally anti traditional , anti establishment
and anti intellectual.
 Very iconoclastic against tradition, pretensions that they
criticized. People who put themselves in the margins, against the
militarization of America, nuclearisation, against the Vietnam
war. Wanted America and society to be anti war, pro nature,
against patriarchy wanted the creation of a society that was as
equal as possible.
 ‘On the Road’ nonfictional, very important accomplishes the
acknowledgement to wide open spaces, because America was an
enormous country. Travel narrative, roads very important part of
the American consciousness.

46.  1900- 1960 was a period of paramount importance to every
aspect of America and the world literature point of view as
America changed profoundly,
 there were two world wars
 America astonishingly became a world power
 technological advances
 evolution of society
 Women in America got the right to vote
 Greater rights were given to women
 Gradually retrenchment of how women were robbed of their
freedom and power as asked to withdraw from public life.
Disempowered women protested which led to the feminist
movement.

47. Thank you.