AMERICAN LITERATURE

CHAPTER ONE

COLONIAL PERIOD

1607-1765

Englishmen in America.-The first writers of what we now call American literature were Englishmen, temporarily or permanently dwelling in the newer western land. They recorded their adventures and observations for the information of those back in the home country, or for the interest and edification of themselves, their communities, and posterity. These men were not consciously producing literature. Much of what they wrote, indeed, has few of the qualities of pure literature; but on almost every page of their writings one may discover the redeeming traits of vigor and sincerity.

Our earliest writers were primarily men of action: they were conquering the wilderness, founding colonies, and incidentally, as time and occasion permitted, jotting down their impressions. They were belated Elizabethans following in the wake of restless explorers, planting the English flag, and bringing into the New World the political, mental, and moral traditions of an old and famous race. In thought and action they were not essentially different from the men back in old England. We find, therefore, that the books which they wrote in a new land simply reflect the literary ideals of the old, more or less modified by pioneer conditions. And so the first American literature is mainly a continuation of contemporary English literature. The first settlers read English books and naturally modeled their own works after them; indeed, for nearly two hundred years there were few American books

to read. During most of this time, moreover, communication with the mother country was frequent and the affection for her was strong.

English Historical Background.-The settlement of America began in a glorious period of English history, just when the splendors of the great Elizabethans were beginning to wane under the somber influence of Puritanism. The first English explorers had sailed west during the reign of Queen Elizabeth (1558-1603). They felt the restless energy of that age of wonderful vitality; they had unbounded intellectual curiosity; they were full of admiration for their sovereign, who, with all her faults, strongly appealed to the popular imagination; they had invincible wills and a sturdy patriotism that made them dare to undertake seemingly impossible things.

The nation was united, and this universal sense of nationality brought courage and hope and joy to the people. There was a feeling of security and prosperity: the troubles with France and Spain had been settled; political and religious plots against Elizabeth, which had long disturbed the peace of the nation, had come to naught; trade and commerce, domestic and foreign, flourished. Above all, the English fleet had in 1588 gained a memorable victory over the dreaded Spanish Armada, an event which united all parties in jubilant thanksgiving. England had at last become a power of the first rank, and she naturally thought of colonizing other lands. Drake sailed. around the world, and Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Sir Walter Raleigh headed expeditions to the New World. Of all the men of this age, the one who seems to us to-day most representative of its daring and its varied accomplishments is Sir Walter Raleigh, man of action, courtier, and scholar.

The reign of Elizabeth's successor, James I, was not so happy. Indeed, compared with the great Queen, James was a failure; personally he was not popular and his policies were even less so; conceited, dogmatic, obstinate, and with strict views about the divine right of kings, he was soon in trouble.

He quarreled with Parliament, which resented his infringement on the right of freedom of speech, was unsuccessful in his foreign policies, and at last found himself in serious financial difficulties. The quarrel with Parliament went on under his successor, Charles I, until it resulted in the beheading of that monarch in 1649 and the establishment of the Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell, following the Civil War between the Cavaliers, or Royalists, and the Puritans, or Republicans (reformers). Fleeing from the political and religious conflicts of these confused times, many Englishmen emigrated to America and founded colonies there; a more detailed account of these will be given presently.

The historical background, then, of our earliest American literature covers the Elizabethan Age, which marks the beginning of modern English history, the reigns of James I and Charles I, and the brief Commonwealth period, when Puritan influence under Cromwell was predominant. With the passing of the Commonwealth in 1660 came the Restoration, when Charles II, who had been in exile in France, mounted the throne of his ancestors; the Cavaliers came back into their own and the nation experienced a violent reaction from the rigors of Puritanism; there was a plenty of "cakes and ale," and merry England gave herself freely to the joy of living. Meanwhile the colonies in the New World were growing apace. Throughout the next century the great social and political movements in England were reflected in our colonial literature.

English Literary Background.-When Captain John Smith and his men were settling Jamestown in 1607, Shakespeare was writing the last of his great tragedies; when the Pilgrims were landing at Plymouth in 1620, Francis Bacon was finishing his essays and Ben Jonson was producing his comedies of "humours." The same year that Smith wrote his True Relation (1608) saw the birth of John Milton; three years later the King James Version of the Bible was given to the world. Thus it will be seen that the men who sailed westward in those early

years of the seventeenth century came out of the golden days of English literature. In London the splendid Elizabethan drama was just beginning to feel the first faint chill of autumn, after the long refulgent summer of the full-blooded playwrights and actors when the welkin was ringing with many voices. Plays and music and songs, the May-pole, the morris-dance, processions of boats on the "silver-streaming Thames," gorgeous pageantry, dreams of fabled strands of gold, stories of marvelous adventures-all these gave youthful zest to life and furnished inspiration and material for the greatest outburst of dramatic activity the world has ever known. Along with this was the gift of song: lyrics of singular freshness and sweetness varied the almost monotonous making of plays, and England was indeed "a nest of singing birds." The prose of the day was touched with this imaginative quality; the long, swinging, sonorous periods, not without a faint undertone of melancholy, are also pleasant to the sensitive ear. It was from such a literature as this that the earliest American writing is in a sense an offshoot.

Then came the soberer literature of the Puritan period, when John Milton brought a sublimer note into poetry and John Bunyan a simpler cadence into prose. Paradise Lost and Pilgrim's Progress are the highest productions of literary Puritanism. At the same time the "Cavalier Poets" were turning out their tuneful trifles, graceful little lyrics of love. The Restoration brought with it the French influence on English letters, and we find the satire in rhyming couplets and the more exact and polished prose of comedy. John Dryden, poet, essayist, and critic, was the great literary figure of the day. After Dryden came the perfecter of the satire, the master of the couplet, Alexander Pope, maker of brilliant epigrams. In this time of Queen Anne prose literature prevailed; the essay and the periodical became the popular form of expression in a highly social age; Joseph Addison and Richard Steele wrote for a widening circle in the Spectator and the

Tatler. The most notable contribution of the eighteenth century, however, was the English novel, which was the beginning of a form of literature more democratic than any other known to the race.

This brief sketch will serve to show how extensive and how varied was the literary background of our own colonial literature. We shall see how closely related in form at least our earlier literature is to that in England; we shall see, too, how difference of subject matter and of environment in the New World gradually brought about a difference of tone and treatment in American writing; and finally, how American literature comes slowly to have a distinctive character.

Colonial Virginia. The first permanent English settlement in America was made at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607. The London Company sent over three small ships containing one hundred and twenty men, more than one half of whom were of good family; the rest were, for the most part, a set of thriftless adventurers. The purpose of their coming was mainly commercial, the hope of enrichment from the gold mines and the abundance of precious stones, which they supposed lay hidden under the virgin soil; incidentally, too, the love of adventure lured them, true Elizabethans that they were. Riches and romance were therefore the impelling motives of these first settlers. To this bold undertaking Michael Drayton, a popular poet of the day, addressed some inspiriting stanzas entitled "To the Virginian Voyage," several of which will serve to show with what roseate hopes the colonists set out on their perilous voyage:

You brave heroic minds,

Worthy your country's name,

That honour still pursue;

Go and subdue!