outline_us_lit

True Report of the New-Found Land of Virginia(1588). Hariot’s book was quickly translated intoLatin, French, and German; the text and pictureswere made into engravings and widely republishedfor over 200 years.The Jamestown colony’s main record, the writingsof Captain John Smith, one of its leaders, isthe exact opposite of Hariot’s accurate, scientificaccount. Smith was an incurable romantic, andhe seems to have embroidered his adventures.To him we owe the famous story of the Indianmaiden, Pocahontas. Whether fact or fiction, thetale is ingrained in the American historical imagination.The story recounts how Pocahontas,favorite daughter of Chief Powhatan, savedCaptain Smith’s life when he was a prisoner ofthe chief. Later, when the English persuadedPowhatan to give Pocahontas to them as ahostage, her gentleness, intelligence, and beautyimpressed the English, and, in 1614, she marriedJohn Rolfe, an English gentleman. The marriageinitiated an eight-year peace between the colonistsand the Indians, ensuring the survival ofthe struggling new colony.In the 17th century, pirates, adventurers, andexplorers opened the way to a second wave ofpermanent colonists, bringing their wives, children,farm implements, and craftsmen’s tools.The early literature of exploration, made up ofdiaries, letters, travel journals, ships’ logs, andreports to the explorers’ financial backers —European rulers or, in mercantile England andHolland, joint stock companies — gradually wassupplanted by records of the settled colonies.Because England eventually took possession ofthe North American colonies, the best-knownand most-anthologized colonial literature isEnglish. As American minority literature continuesto flower in the 20th century and Americanlife becomes increasingly multicultural, scholarsare rediscovering the importance of the continent’smixed ethnic heritage. Although the storyof literature now turns to the English accounts, itis important to recognize its richly cosmopolitanbeginnings.THE COLONIAL PERIOD INNEW ENGLANDIt is likely that no other colonists in the historyof the world were as intellectual as thePuritans. Between 1630 and 1690, there wereas many university graduates in the northeasternsection of the United States, known as NewEngland, as in the mother country — an astoundingfact when one considers that most educatedpeople of the time were aristocrats who wereunwilling to risk their lives in wilderness conditions.The self-made and often self-educatedPuritans were notable exceptions. They wantededucation to understand and execute God’s willas they established their colonies throughoutNew England.The Puritan definition of good writing was thatwhich brought home a full awareness of the importanceof worshipping God and of the spiritualdangers that the soul faced on Earth. Puritanstyle varied enormously — from complex metaphysicalpoetry to homely journals and crushinglypedantic religious history. Whatever the styleor genre, certain themes remained constant. Lifewas seen as a test; failure led to eternal damnationand hellfire, and success to heavenly bliss.This world was an arena of constant battlebetween the forces of God and the forces ofSatan, a formidable enemy with many disguises.Many Puritans excitedly awaited the “millennium,”when Jesus would return to Earth, endhuman misery, and inaugurate 1,000 years ofpeace and prosperity.Scholars have long pointed out the linkbetween Puritanism and capitalism: Both rest onambition, hard work, and an intense striving forsuccess. Although individual Puritans could notknow, in strict theological terms, whether theywere “saved” and among the elect who would goto heaven, Puritans tended to feel that earthly5