American Literature: An Overview Of The Development From The 17th To The
20th Centuries
Like other national
literatures, American literature was shaped by the history of the country that
produced it. For almost a century and a half, America was merely a group of colonies
scattered along the eastern seaboard of the North American continent--colonies
from which a few hardy souls tentatively ventured westward. After a successful
rebellion against the motherland, America became the United States, a nation.
By the end of the 19th century this nation extended southward to the Gulf of
Mexico, northward to the 49th parallel, and westward to the Pacific. By the end
of the 19th century, too, it had taken its place among the powers of the
world--its fortunes so interrelated with those of other nations that inevitably
it became involved in two world wars and, following these conflicts, with the
problems of Europe and East Asia. Meanwhile, the rise of science and industry,
as well as changes in ways of thinking and feeling, wrought many modifications
in people's lives. All these factors in the development of the United States
molded the literature of the country.
The 17th century
American literature
at first was naturally a colonial literature, by authors who were Englishmen
and who thought and wrote as such. John Smith, a soldier of fortune, is
credited with initiating American literature. His chief books included A True
Relation of . . . Virginia . . . (1608) and The generall Historie of Virginia,
New England, and the Summer Isles (1624). Although these volumes often
glorified their author, they were avowedly written to explain colonizing
opportunities to Englishmen. In time, each colony was similarly described:
Daniel Denton's Brief Description of New York (1670), William Penn's Brief
Account of the Province of Pennsylvania (1682), and Thomas Ashe's Carolina
(1682) were only a few of many works praising America as a land of economic
promise.Such writers acknowledged British allegiance, but others stressed the
differences of opinion that spurred the colonists to leave their homeland. More
important, they argued questions of government involving the relationship
between church and state. The attitude that most authors attacked was jauntily
set forth by Nathaniel Ward of Massachusetts Bay in The Simple Cobler of Aggawam
in America (1647). Ward amusingly defended the status quo and railed at
colonists who sponsored newfangled notions. A variety of counterarguments to
such a conservative view were published. John Winthrop's Journal (written
1630-49) told sympathetically of the attempt of Massachusetts Bay Colony to
form a theocracy--a state with God at its head and with its laws based upon the
Bible. Later defenders of the theocratic ideal were Increase Mather and his son
Cotton. William Bradford's History of Plymouth Plantation (through 1646) showed
how his pilgrim Separatists broke completely with Anglicanism. Even more
radical than Bradford was Roger Williams, who, in a series of controversial
pamphlets, advocated not only the separation of church and state but also the
vesting of power in the people and the tolerance of different religious
beliefs.The utilitarian writings of the 17th century included biographies,
treatises, accounts of voyages, and sermons. There were few achievements in drama
or fiction, since there was a widespread prejudice against these forms. Bad but
popular poetry appeared in the Bay Psalm Book of 1640 and in Michael Wigglesworth's
summary in doggerel verse of Calvinistic belief, The Day of Doom (1662). There
was some poetry, at least, of a higher order. Anne Bradstreet of Massachusetts
wrote some lyrics published in The Tenth Muse (1650), which movingly conveyed
her feelings concerning religion and her family. Ranked still higher by modern
critics is a poet whose works were not discovered and published until 1939:
Edward Taylor, an English-born minister and physician who lived in Boston and
Westfield, Massachusetts. Less touched by gloom than the typical Puritan,
Taylor wrote lyrics that showed his delight in Christian belief and
experience.All 17th-century American writings were in the manner of British
writings of the same period. John Smith wrote in the tradition of geographic
literature, Bradford echoed the cadences of the King James Bible, while the
Mathers and Roger Williams wrote bejeweled prose typical of the day. Anne
Bradstreet's poetic style derived from a long line of British poets, including
Spenser and Sidney, while Taylor was in the tradition of such Metaphysical
poets as George Herbert and John Donne. Both the content and form of the literature
of this first century in America were thus markedly English.
The 18th century
In America in the
early years of the 18th century, some writers, such as Cotton Mather, carried
on the older traditions. His huge history and biography of Puritan New England,
Magnalia Christi Americana, in 1702, and his vigorous Manuductio ad
Ministerium, or introduction to the ministry, in 1726, were defenses of ancient
Puritan convictions. Jonathan Edwards, initiator of the Great Awakening, a
religious revival that stirred the eastern seacoast for many years, eloquently
defended his burning belief in Calvinistic doctrine--of the concept that man,
born totally depraved, could attain virtue and salvation only through God's
grace--in his powerful sermons and most notably in the philosophical treatise
Freedom of Will (1754). He supported his claims by relating them to a complex
metaphysical system and by reasoning brilliantly in clear and often beautiful
prose.But Mather and Edwards were defending a doomed cause. Liberal New England
ministers such as John Wise and Jonathan Mayhew moved toward a less rigid
religion. Samuel Sewall heralded other changes in his amusing Diary, covering
the years 1673-1729. Though sincerely religious, he showed in daily records how
commercial life in New England replaced rigid Puritanism with more worldly
attitudes. The Journal of Mme Sara Knight comically detailed a journey that
lady took to New York in 1704. She wrote vividly of what she saw and commented
upon it from the standpoint of an orthodox believer, but a quality of levity in
her witty writings showed that she was much less fervent than the Pilgrim
founders had been. In the South, William Byrd of Virginia, an aristocratic
plantation owner, contrasted sharply with gloomier predecessors. His record of
a surveying trip in 1728, The History of the Dividing Line, and his account of
a visit to his frontier properties in 1733, A Journey to the Land of Eden, were
his chief works. Years in England, on the Continent, and among the gentry of
the South had created gaiety and grace of expression, and, although a devout
Anglican, Byrd was as playful as the Restoration wits whose works he clearly
admired.The wrench of the American Revolution emphasized differences that had been
growing between American and British political concepts. As the colonists moved
to the belief that rebellion was inevitable, fought the bitter war, and worked
to found the new nation's government, they were influenced by a number of very
effective political writers, such as Samuel Adams and John Dickinson, both of
whom favoured the colonists, and Loyalist Joseph Galloway. But two figures
loomed above these--Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine.Franklin, born in 1706,
had started to publish his writings in his brother's newspaper, the New England
Courant, as early as 1722. This newspaper championed the cause of the
"Leather Apron" man and the farmer and appealed by using easily
understood language and practical arguments. The idea that common sense was a good
guide was clear in both the popular Poor Richard's almanac, which Franklin
edited between 1732 and 1757 and filled with prudent and witty aphorisms
purportedly written by uneducated but experienced Richard Saunders, and in the
author's Autobiography, written between 1771 and 1788, a record of his rise
from humble circumstances that offered worldly wise suggestions for future
success.Franklin's self-attained culture, deep and wide, gave substance and
skill to varied articles, pamphlets, and reports that he wrote concerning the
dispute with Great Britain, many of them extremely effective in stating and
shaping the colonists' cause.Thomas Paine went from his native England to
Philadelphia and became a magazine editor and then, about 14 months later, the
most effective propagandist for the colonial cause. His pamphlet "Common
Sense" (January 1776) did much to influence the colonists to declare their
independence. "The American Crisis" papers (December 1776-December
1783) spurred Americans to fight on through the blackest years of the war.
Based upon Paine's simple deistic beliefs, they showed the conflict as a
stirring melodrama with the angelic colonists against the forces of evil. Such
white and black picturings were highly effective propaganda. Another reason for
Paine's success was his poetic fervour, which found expression in impassioned
words and phrases long to be remembered and quoted.
The 19th century
Early 19th-century
literature
After the American
Revolution, and increasingly after the War of 1812, American writers were
exhorted to produce a literature that was truly native. As if in response, four
authors of very respectable stature appeared. William Cullen Bryant, Washington
Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, and Edgar Allan Poe initiated a great half century
of literary development.Bryant, a New Englander by birth, attracted attention
in his 23rd year when the first version of his poem "Thanatopsis"
(1817) appeared. This, as well as some later poems, was written under the
influence of English 18th-century poets. Still later, however, under the
influence of Wordsworth and other Romantics, he wrote nature lyrics that
vividly represented the New England scene. Turning to journalism, he had a long
career as a fighting liberal editor of The Evening Post. He himself was
overshadowed, in renown at least, by a native-born New Yorker, Washington
Irving.Irving, youngest member of a prosperous merchant family, joined with
ebullient young men of the town in producing the Salmagundi papers (1807-08),
which took off the foibles of Manhattan's citizenry. This was followed by A
History of New York (1809), by "Diedrich Knickerbocker," a burlesque
history that mocked pedantic scholarship and sniped at the old Dutch families.
Irving's models in these works were obviously Neoclassical English satirists,
from whom he had learned to write in a polished, bright style. Later, having
met Sir Walter Scott and having become acquainted with imaginative German
literature, he introduced a new Romantic note in The Sketch Book (1819-20), Bracebridge
Hall (1822), and other works. He was the first American writer to win the
ungrudging (if somewhat surprised) respect of British critics.James Fenimore
Cooper won even wider fame. Following the pattern of Sir Walter Scott's
"Waverley" novels, he did his best work in the
"Leatherstocking" tales (1823-41), a five-volume series celebrating
the career of a great frontiersman named Natty Bumppo. His skill in weaving
history into inventive plots and in characterizing his compatriots brought him
acclaim not only in America and England but on the continent of Europe as
well.Edgar Allan Poe, reared in the South, lived and worked as an author and
editor in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Richmond, and New York City. His work was
shaped largely by analytical skill that showed clearly in his role as an
editor: time after time he gauged the taste of readers so accurately that
circulation figures of magazines under his direction soared impressively. It
showed itself in his critical essays, wherein he lucidly explained and
logically applied his criteria. His gothic tales of terror were written in
accordance with his findings when he studied the most popular magazines of the
day. His masterpieces of terror--"The Fall of the House of Usher"
(1839), "The Masque of the Red Death" (1842), "The Cask of
Amontillado" (1846), and others--were written according to a carefully
worked out psychological method. So were his detective stories, such as
"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1841), which historians credited as
the first of the genre. As a poet, he achieved fame with "The Raven"
(1845). His work, especially his critical writings and carefully crafted poems,
had perhaps a greater influence in France, where they were translated by
Charles Baudelaire, than in his own country.Two Southern novelists were also
outstanding in the earlier part of the century: John Pendleton Kennedy and
William Gilmore Simms. In Swallow Barn (1832), Kennedy wrote delightfully of
life on the plantations. Simms's forte was the writing of historical novels like
those of Scott and Cooper, which treated the history of the frontier and his
native South Carolina. The Yemassee (1835) and Revolutionary romances show him
at his best.
The 20th century
Writing from 1914
to 1945
Important movements
in drama, poetry, fiction, and criticism took form in the years before, during,
and after World War I. The eventful period that followed the war left its
imprint upon books of all kinds. Literary forms of the period were
extraordinarily varied, and in drama, poetry, and fiction leading authors
tended toward radical technical experiments.Experiments in dramaAlthough drama
had not been a major art form in the 19th century, no type of writing was more
experimental than a new drama that arose in rebellion against the glib commercial
stage. In the early years of the 20th century, Americans traveling in Europe
encountered a vital, flourishing theatre; returning home, some of them became
active in founding the Little Theatre movement throughout the country. Freed
from commercial limitations, playwrights experimented with dramatic forms and
methods of production, and in time producers, actors, and dramatists appeared
who had been trained in college classrooms and community playhouses. Some
Little Theatre groups became commercial producers--for example, the Washington
Square Players, founded in 1915, which became the Theatre Guild (first
production in 1919). The resulting drama was marked by a spirit of innovation
and by a new seriousness and maturity.Eugene O'Neill, the most admired dramatist
of the period, was a product of this movement. He worked with the Provincetown
Players before his plays were commercially produced. His dramas were remarkable
for their range. Beyond the Horizon (first performed 1920), Anna Christie
(1921), Desire Under the Elms (1924), and The Iceman Cometh (1946) were
naturalistic works, while The Emperor Jones (1920) and The Hairy Ape (1922)
made use of the Expressionistic techniques developed in German drama in the
period 1914-24. He also employed a stream-of-consciousness form in Strange
Interlude (1928) and produced a work that combined myth, family drama, and
psychological analysis in Mourning Becomes Electra (1931).No other dramatist
was as generally praised as O'Neill, but many others wrote plays that reflected
the growth of a serious and varied drama, including Maxwell Anderson, whose
verse dramas have dated badly, and Robert E. Sherwood, a Broadway professional
who wrote both comedy (Reunion in Vienna [1931]) and tragedy (There Shall Be No
Night [1940]). Marc Connelly wrote touching fantasy in a Negro folk biblical
play, The Green Pastures (1930). Like O'Neill, Elmer Rice made use of both
Expressionistic techniques (The Adding Machine [1923]) and naturalism (Street
Scene [1929]). Lillian Hellman wrote powerful, well-crafted melodramas in The
Children's Hour (1934) and The Little Foxes (1939). Radical theatre experiments
included Marc Blitzstein's savagely satiric musical The Cradle Will Rock (1937)
and the work of Orson Welles and John Houseman for the government-sponsored
Works Progress Administration (WPA) Federal Theatre Project. The premier
radical theatre of the decade was the Group Theatre (1931-41) under Harold
Clurman and Lee Strasberg, which became best known for presenting the work of
Clifford Odets. In Waiting for Lefty (1935), a stirring plea for labour
unionism, Odets roused the audience to an intense pitch of fervour, and in
Awake and Sing (1935), perhaps the best play of the decade, he created a
lyrical work of family conflict and youthful yearning. Other important plays by
Odets for the Group Theatre were Paradise Lost (1935), Golden Boy (1937), and
Rocket to the Moon (1938). Thornton Wilder used stylized settings and poetic
dialogue in Our Town (1938) and turned to fantasy in The Skin of Our Teeth (1942).
William Saroyan shifted his lighthearted, anarchic vision from fiction to drama
with My Heart's in the Highlands and The Time of Your Life (both 1939).
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