The beginning of American literature

LECTURE 15

(1620 – 1836)

15.1. Истоки американской литературы. Сочинения Джона Смита. Литература XVIII века: Анна Брэдстрит, первый поэт колониальной Америки. Бенджамин Франклин как литератор: "Автобиография". Поэт американской революции Филип Френо.

American literature begins in colonial times. In fact, some of the first writers were British born. It took several generations for the first truly American authors to come into prominence. The earliest descriptions of the New World date back to the times of William Shakespeare. It was Captain John Smith who was instrumental in generating more active interest in the new continent. How did he do that? He did that by way of writing books, of course.

15.1.1. Captain J ohn Smith (1579-1631) helped establish Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English settlement. He worked on his father's farm until he left home as a teenager and became a soldier. His life was quite extraordinary. His military adventures led him through Europe and eventually to Hungary, where he fought against invading Turks. Turks captured Smith and sold him into slavery, from which he later escaped. He returned to England, where he became a member of the London Company's colony council. In 1606, Smith and the rest of the colonial expedition set sail for America.

The expedition founded the settlement named Jamestown in May 1607. The colonists fared badly, suffering from famine, disease, and attacks by the natives. Smith was chosen president of the colony and insisted that all the colonists work, declaring: “He that will not work shall not eat, except by sickness he be disabled.” The colony survived, but Smith's strict leadership resulted in uneasy relations with some of the colonizers, especially members of the gentry who were not used to hard labor.

Smith organized trade with the Native Americans and led expeditions to explore and map the region surrounding Jamestown. On one of these expeditions he was captured by the Native American chief Powhatan, and, according to his account in a book he published, he was saved from being put to death by the chief's daughter, Pocahontas. This adventure has become part of American folklore. However, most historians do not believe this story.

Smith's courageous and resourceful leadership is credited with having carried the colony through its first two years. Smith returned to England after being badly burned in an accident. Later he returned to America and led an expedition that explored and mapped the coast of New England, which he named. He returned to England with valuable furs and fish. Once back in England, Smith was a prolific writer and an ardent supporter of English colonization in America.

15.1.2. Few people who arrived in the New World brought their most valuable possessions, that is, books! One such man was John Harvard (1607-1638), who immigrated to New England and settled in Charlestown (now part of Boston), where he was active as a minister for a short time. He soon died leaving the college at New Towne (later Cambridge), Massachusetts, half his fortune and his library of some 300 books. The Massachusetts General Court named the institution Harvard College (now Harvard University) in his honor in 1639.

At 18, the Englishwoman Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672) arrived in New England. She was a daughter of the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and married Simon Bradstreet, who later became governor of the colony. A housewife with eight children, she was also the first important poet in the American colonies. Bradstreet's poetry concerns the arduous life of the early settlers, and her work provides an excellent view of the difficulties she and her fellow colonists encountered. In her poems, she explored her place in the natural world. Bradstreet also used her poetry to examine her religious struggles; she was unable to embrace Calvinism completely – her poetry describes the conflict she felt between living a pleasant life and living a Christian life, and recounts her doubts about Puritanism. Although Bradstreet addressed broad and universal themes, she is remembered best for her body of evocative poems that provide intimate glimpses into the home life of inhabitants of colonial New England.

15.1.3. In 1706, a child was born into a large family in Boston who was destined to become one of the greatest Americans of all time. He made important contributions to American literature too. His name was Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790). At age 13 he was apprenticed to his brother James, who had recently returned from England with a new printing press. Benjamin learned the printing trade, devoting his spare time to the advancement of his education. When he acquired a copy of the third volume of the Spectator by Sir Richard Steele and Joseph Addison, he set himself the goal of mastering its prose style.

At 23, he bought the Pennsylvania Gazette, a dull, poorly edited weekly newspaper, which he made, by his witty style and judicious selection of news, both entertaining and informative. Franklin engaged in many public projects. He founded what was probably the first public library in America, chartered as the Philadelphia Library.

He first published Poor Richard’s Almanac in 1732, under the pen name Richard Saunders. This modest volume quickly gained a wide and appreciative audience, and its homespun, practical wisdom exerted a pervasive influence upon the American character. Always interested in scientific studies, he invented the Franklin stove, which furnished greater heat with a reduced consumption of fuel. He supported the hypothesis that lightning is an electrical phenomenon, and proposed an effective method of demonstrating this fact. He invented the lightning rod and offered what is called the “one-fluid” theory in explanation of the two kinds of electricity, positive and negative. In recognition of his impressive scientific accomplishments, Franklin received honorary degrees from the University of Saint Andrews and the University of Oxford. Franklin's public service is well-known and deserves nothing but admiration. To his common sense, wisdom, wit, and industry, he joined great firmness of purpose, matchless tact, and broad tolerance. Both as a brilliant conversationalist and a sympathetic listener, Franklin had a wide and appreciative following in the intellectual salons of the day. Franklin's literary reputation rests on his unfinished Autobiography, which is considered by many the epitome of his life and character.

15.1.4. The American Revolution produced a great amount of literary works. The most outstanding is its poetry. Philip Freneau (1752-1832) is known as the poet of the American Revolution. His reputation as a satirist was first achieved with a series of vitriolic poems attacking the British, written shortly after the outbreak of the Revolution. Among his most famous poems are “ The Wild Honeysuckle, ” ”The House of Night,” and “The Indian Burying Ground.”

15.2. Первое поколение национальных писателей. Вашингтон Ирвинг – родоначальник американского романтизма и жанра новеллы. Изображение американской действительности глазами европейца.

The first generation of truly American writers includes two Romantics – Washington Irving and James F. Cooper. Both brought international recognition to young American literature.

Washington Irving (1783-1859) is the first American author to achieve international renown. The critical acceptance and enduring popularity of Irving's tales proved the effectiveness of the short story as an American literary form. Born in New York City, Irving studied law at private schools. His interest in the law was neither deep nor long-lasting, and Irving began to contribute satirical essays and sketches to New York newspapers. Irving's contributions established his reputation as an essayist and wit, and this reputation was enhanced by his next work, A History of New York (1809). The book contains the character who is Irving's famous comic creation, the Dutch-American scholar Diedrich Knickerbocker. The work is a satirical account of New York State during the period of Dutch occupation. Generally considered the first important contribution to American comic literature, and a great popular success from the start, the work brought Irving considerable fame and financial reward.

In 1815 Irving went to Liverpool, England, as a silent partner in his brothers' commercial firm. In England he became the intimate friend of several leading men of letters, including Sir Walter Scott. Irving wrote the essays and short stories collected in The Sketch Book. It was his most popular work and was widely acclaimed in both England and the United States for its geniality, grace, and humor. The collection's two most famous stories, both based on German folktales, are “ Rip Van Winkle,” about a man who falls asleep in the woods for twenty years, and “ The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” about a schoolteacher's encounter with a legendary headless horseman. These tales are considered classics in American literature.

15.3. Джеймс Купер – создатель американского исторического романа. Поиск идеала американского колониста.

James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) is a novelist, travel writer, and social critic, regarded as the first great American writer of fiction. He was famed for his action-packed plots and his vivid, if somewhat idealized portrayal of American life in the forest and at sea. Cooper grew up in Cooperstown, a central New York State town founded by his father. Much of Cooper's knowledge of the forest and Native Americans was gathered firsthand during his boyhood in a region still very much a wilderness. After being expelled from Yale University for his prankish behavior, Cooper served as a sailor in the merchant marine and as a midshipman in the United States Navy.

Cooper began his writing career at the age of 30. He wrote his first book primarily to demonstrate to his wife that he could write a better novel than the one he was reading to her at the time. It was a conventional novel of English manners and was not a success. Cooper chose for his second book a subject closer to home, and the result, The Spy, a novel about the American Revolution in New York State, was successful both in the United States and abroad.

Two years later Cooper wrote The Pioneers, the first of the five novels that make up the Leather-Stocking Tales. The remaining four book s— The Last of the Mohicans, The Prairie, The Pathfinder, and The Deerslayer — continue the story of Natty Bumppo, one of the most famous characters in American fiction. The Leather-Stocking Tales are noted for their portrayal of American subject matter in American settings. The hero of the tales, Natty Bumppo, embodies the conflict between preserving nature unspoiled and developing the land in the name of progress. He is a white frontiersman with ties to the settlers who nevertheless spends much of his time in the wilderness with Native Americans. The positioning of Natty Bumppo between two modes of living appealed to readers and contributed to Cooper's broad appeal, both in the United States and overseas.

Later, Cooper wrote several works of social criticism in which he expressed his conservative attitude toward democracy. The satire The Monikins and The American Democrat continue in the same vein. Despite attacks in the press for his snobbery and antidemocratic stance, Cooper's works remained popular.

15.4. Романтизм Эдгара По: лирика, рассказы, критика.

15.4.1. Edgar Allan Poe ( 1809-1849 ) is known as a poet and critic but most famous as the first master of the short-story form, especially tales of the mysterious and macabre. The literary merits of Poe's writings have been debated since his death, but his works have remained popular and many major American and European writers have professed their artistic debt to him.

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Poe was orphaned in his early childhood and was raised by John Allan, a successful businessman of Richmond, Virginia. Taken by the Allan family to England at the age of six, Poe was placed in a private school. Upon returning to the United States, he continued to study in private schools. He attended the University of Virginia for a year, but his foster father, displeased by the young man's drinking and gambling, refused to pay his debts and forced him to work as a clerk. Poe, disliking his new duties intensely, quit the job, thus estranging Allan, and went to Boston. There his first book, Tamerlane and Other Poems, was published anonymously. Shortly afterward Poe enlisted in the U.S. Army and served a two-year term. At 20, his second volume of verse was published, and he effected a reconciliation with Allan, who secured him an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy. After only a few months at the academy Poe was dismissed for neglect of duty, and his foster father disowned him permanently.

Poe's third book of poems appeared in 1831, and the following year he moved to Baltimore, where he lived with his aunt and her 11-year-old daughter, Virginia Clemm. The following year his tale “ A MS. Found in a Bottle ” won a contest sponsored by the Baltimore Saturday Visitor. Poe was an editor of the Southern Literary Messenger. In 1836 he married his young cousin. Throughout the next decade, much of which was marred by his wife's long illness, Poe worked as an editor for various periodicals in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and in New York City. In 1847 Virginia died and Poe himself became ill; his disastrous addiction to liquor and his alleged use of drugs, recorded by contemporaries, may have contributed to his early death.

15.4.2. Among Poe's poetic output, about a dozen poems are remarkable for their flawless literary construction and for their haunting themes and meters. In “ The Raven ”, for example, the narrator is overwhelmed by melancholy and omens of death. Poe's extraordinary manipulation of rhythm and sound is particularly evident in “ The Bells ”, a poem that seems to echo with the chiming of metallic instruments. “ Annabel Lee ” is a verse lamentation on the death of a beautiful young woman.

It was many and many a year ago,

In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden there lived with whom you may know

By the name of Annabel Lee;

And this maiden she lived with no other thought

Than to love and be loved by me.

She was a child and I was a child,

In this kingdom by the sea,

But we loved with a love that was more than love -

I and my Annabel Lee –

With a love that the winged seraphs of Heaven

Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,

In this kingdom by the sea,

A wind blew out of a cloud by night

Chilling my Annabel Lee;

So that her highborn kinsmen came

And bore her away from me,

To shut her up in a sepulchre

In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,

Went envying her and me: -

Yes! that was the reason (as all men know,

In this kingdom by the sea)

That the wind came out of the cloud, chilling

And killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than love

Of those who were older than we -

Of many far wiser than we –

And neither the angels in Heaven above

Nor the demons down under the sea,

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee: -

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And the stars never rise but I see the bright eyes

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side

Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,

In her sepulchre there by the sea -

In her tomb by the side of the sea.

Poe, by his own choice, was a poet, but economic necessity forced him to turn to the relatively profitable genre of prose. Whether or not Poe invented the short story, it is certain that he originated the novel of detection. Perhaps his best-known tale in this genre is “ The Gold Bug ”, about a search for buried treasure. “ The Murders in the Rue Morgue ”, “ The Mystery of Marie Roget ”, and “ The Purloined Letter ” are regarded as predecessors of the modern mystery, or detective, story.

Many of Poe's tales are distinguished by the author's unique grotesque inventiveness in addition to his superb plot construction. Such stories include “ The Fall of the House of Usher ”, in which the penetrating gloominess of the atmosphere is accented equally with plot and characterization; “ The Tell-Tale Heart ”, in which a maniacal murderer is subconsciously haunted into confessing his guilt; and “ The Cask of Amontillado ”, an eerie tale of revenge.

In the course of his editorial work, Poe functioned largely as a book reviewer and produced a significant body of criticism; his essays were famous for their sarcasm, wit, and exposure of literary pretension. His evaluations have withstood the test of time and have earned for him a high place among American literary critics.

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