A Concise History of American Literature
What is literature?
Literature is language artistically used to achieve identifiable literary qualities and to convey meaningful messages.
Chapter 1 Colonial Period
I. Background: Puritanism
1. features of Puritanism
(1) Predestination: God decided everything before things occurred.
(2) Original sin: Human beings were born to be evil, and this original sin can be passed down from generation to generation.
(3) Total depravity
(4) Limited atonement: Only the “elect” can be saved.
2. Influence
(1) A group of good qualities – hard work, thrift, piety, sobriety (serious and thoughtful) influenced American literature.
(2) It led to the everlasting myth. All literature is based on a myth – garden of Eden.
(3) Symbolism: the American puritan’s metaphorical mode of perception was chiefly instrumental in calling into being a literary symbolism which is distinctly American.
(4) With regard to their writing, the style is fresh, simple and direct; the rhetoric is plain and honest, not without a touch of nobility often traceable to the direct influence of the Bible.
II. Overview of the literature
1. types of writing
diaries, histories, journals, letters, travel books, autobiographies/biographies, sermons
2. writers of colonial period
(1) Anne Bradstreet
(2) Edward Taylor
(3) Roger Williams
(4) John Woolman
(5) Thomas Paine
(6) Philip Freneau
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