Beginnings of the American National Literature.

- attempts to create the Am. national lit. x but: disagreements about the way:

(a) the Am. lit. lacks national feeling, seeks to express the special character of the nation: the Eur. lit. should serve as a model

(b) the Am. lit. too young to declare its independence from the Br. literary tradition: the Am. lit. should become a new branch of Eur. culture

(c) lit. universal: the national lit. a mistake

- young Am. authors tried to create the national lit. x but: most lit. still imported from En., a number of cultural centres, magazines, newsp, etc.

L i t e r a t u r e  o f  t h e  R e v o l u t i o n a r y  W a r

- aimed to resist the Br., to provide moral leadership, and to evoke the feelings of patriotism

- travel narratives and battles accounts < the Ind. captivity narratives

- relig. journals and sermons

- political satires on public controversies, esp. political pamphlets – T. Paine

- patriotic verse ballads

- occasional essays < highly derivative in structure and themes from Br. models

L i t e r a t u r e  o f  t h e  N e w  R e p u b l i c

- the orig. 13 states suffered under economic and cultural dependence on En, little national sentiment, and political and relig. tensions (the Constitution controversy, Deism x Protestantism, etc.)

- conditions for writers – often portrayed in writing:

(–) materialism: lack of financial resources for artists

(–) inadequate copyright law: reprinting Br. lit. cheaper than buying the Am.

(+) growth of subscription libraries and new magazines

(+) An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828), by Webster: outlined the specifics of the newly created independent, purified, and simplified language

- the ‘Connecticut Wits’ incl. P. Freneau, W. C. Bryant, & oth.: adapted the neo-classical form to native subjects x the later originality of W. Whitman & E. Dickinson

- the ‘Knickerbocker School’ incl. W. C. Bryant, W. Irving, and J. F. Cooper = a loosely assembled group of well-to-do and well-read bachelors displaying their wit and sophistication in NY’s taverns: explored Am. subjects and themes

- an urgent need to establ. a specifically Am. historical context, to create a world where the imagination might flourish: W. Irving’s provincial Sleepy Hollow, J. F. Cooper’s woods of the frontier, N. Hawthorne’s Salem, H. D. Thoreau’s Walden Pond, H. Melville’s boundless ocean, and W. Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County

- result:

(a) W. Irving: his career as a writer parallel to the new nation’s career as a culture, his work illustr. the struggle of Am. culture for autonomy against the prevailing opinion of the 19^th c. that Am. lacks subject matter suitable for lit., his work suggests the Am. experience suitable x but: only resistant to the Eur. forms

(b) J. F. Cooper: establ. frontier as the primary fact of the Am. history, and landscape as the fundamental reality of Am. life

I n d i a n  C a p t i v i t y  N a r r a t i v e s 

( 1 7 ^{t h}  –  l a t e  1 9 ^{t h}  c e n t u r i e s )

- stories of men and particularly women of Eur. descent captured by the ‘uncivilised enemies’ in the form of Native Am.

- often with a theme of redemption by faith in the face of the threats and temptations of an alien way of life

- often based on real events x but: frequently with fictional elements, sometimes entirely fictional

- pop. in both Am. and Eur. from the 17^th c. until the close of the Am. frontier in the late 19^th c.

> Mary Rowlandson’s A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs Mary Rowlandson