American Literature: A Comprehensive Guide from Native American Origins to the New American Literature
0. Native American and Explorers. Native Americans. American literature begins with the orally transmitted myths, legends, tales, and lyrics (always songs) of Indian cultures. There was no written literature among the more than 500 different Indian languages and tribal cultures that existed in North America before the first Europeans arrived. As a result, Native American oral literature is quite diverse.Tribes maintained their own religions. Indian stories glow with reverence for nature as a spiritual as well as physical mother. Nature is alive and endowed with spiritual forces; main characters may be animals or plants, often totems associated with a tribe, group, or individual. The closest to the Indian sense of holiness in later American literature is Ralph Waldo Emerson’s transcendental “Over-Soul”. Examples of almost every oral genre can be found in American Indian literature: lyrics, chants, myths, fairy tales, humorous anecdotes, incantations, riddles, proverbs, epics, and legendary histories. Literature of Exploration. If history had taken a different turn, the United States easily could have been a part of the great Spanish or French overseas empires. Its present inhabitants might speak Spanish and form one nation with Mexico, or speak French and be joined with Canadian Francophone Quebec and Montreal. Christopher Columbus. The first known and sustained contact between the Americas and the rest of the world began with the famous voyage of CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS funded by the Spanish Crown. Columbus’s journal in his Epistola, ‖ (written in Spanish) printed in 1493, recounts the trip’s dramao. Piety: In the 1493 letter he expresses. Aspiration: In the 1493 letter he states. Self-righteousness: In the 1503 letter. Pride: In the 1493 letter Espanola is a marvel. Naufragios, by Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca. The expedition (1528) of 250 to 300 men, including Cabeza de Vaca, was led by Panfilo de Narvaez. After surviving a hurricane near Cuba, the expedition landed on the west coast of Florida in April 1528, claiming the land for Spain. Cabeza de Vaca returned to Spain (in 1537) and published an account of his travels, noting the appalling treatment of Indians by the Spanish. Naufragios is a central text in colonial studies. The Shipwrecks are not the exalted relation of a victorious feat. The unfulfilled purpose of the expedition – to conquer and rule – is positively replaced by another, which is a rhetorical feat: to inform and convince. The journey (the very center of the story) is not only a physical or geographical transfer. We may distinguish in the work four moments in which the representation of the Alvar’s subject changes in relation to different aspects that are raised throughout the text: Spanish Conquerors versus the indigenous. From the successive difficulties that the expedition faces, Alvar undergoes a gradual individualization. Approaches to and acceptance of the indigenous world (uses, customs, religion, etc.). Cabeza de Vaca presents himself as part of the indigenous group. John Smith. John Smith was an English soldier, explorer and colonial governor. He played an important role in the establishment of the colony at Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in America in the early 17th century. Smith was an incurable romantic, and he tended to ornament his adventures. To him we owe the famous story of the Indian maiden, Pocahontas (daughter of Chief Powhatan). Whether fact or fiction, the tale is ingrained in the American historical imagination. After returning to England he wrote A True Relation of Virginia (1608). The second was The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles, (1624). In the 17th century, pirates, adventurers, and explorers opened the way to a second wave of permanent colonists. John Smith: The Generall Historie of Virginia, New England and The Summer Isles (Third Book). Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca: Naufragios (Chapters IV, XIV, XV, XXII, XXXII).
1. Introduction to American Literature. We shall concentrate on two key aspects: Characteristics that distinguish American Literature from British Literature. Formative period of American Literature: the period when it attained its peculiar, differentiating characteristics. Social Background. The first settlers were: Dissenters. Religious. Idealistic. Characterized by courage and hardiness. Pragmatic. Business Drive, Pursuit of Liberty, Religious Zeal, hope and faith were the characteristics of the first American settlers. Geographical Setting American landscape is peculiar for 3 reasons: 1. Space: its enormity, the amount of available land. It has also a lot of variety of landscapes, climates, ecosystems, from deserts to forests, from semi-tropical to truly polar. 2. Newness: America was also virgin land. A new Eden, a paradise, a promised Land where spiritual regeneration could happen. America was also the beacon for the salvation of the world, the land called to be the moral and spiritual leader of the world. 3. The West: almost limitless expansion of a cultural, social, religious, political ideal to the West through a vast Virgin land. The Myth of the Frontier “As used in Europe, The Frontier means a boundary between two nations and it is represented on the map by a thin line. That line is one to approach with caution, equipped with passports and permits. It is a place to stop at or pass at national peril “The sharp edge of sovereignty”. In America, the word frontier is hardly used to indicate the nation’s limits. Turner’s main Ideas: His Frontier Thesis was the key to his thought. Frederick Jackson Turner’s The Significance of the Frontier in American History (1893): A narrative of heroic rebirth in an ever-retreating wilderness. The essential American creation myth. The dynamic West rather than distant Europe was the seedbed of American culture. The intense pressure of the frontier continually shattered European customs and forged a new American culture. The “ever-retreating frontier” forged an exuberant, restless, materialistic, pragmatic people. It also gave birth to American democracy, nationalism, and individualism. America as a Myth. Three main aspects of America as a Myth: Boundless progress. Beacon and guide for the salvation of humanity. The American Dream.The American Dream. Belief in progress. General attainability of success. American exceptionalism and its Manifest Destiny. The Melting Pot. Major Image Clusters. The Mythic Images of America as a land of milk and honey and a new. The Religious Images of America. The Political Images of America: where natural rights and natural laws would become reality, and where a “Declaration of Independence” resulted in a political system envied by Europeans. Characteristics of American literature. Theme. Technology vs. Virgin land. Old World vs. New World. Individual vs. Society. Liberal vs. Conservative. Language and Style. American sense of Romance (a tendency to abstraction, fabulation, symbolism…). Tendency to allegory. Evolution: Postcolonial features. The changes which eventually differentiated Am Lit from British Lit did not happen all of a sudden, but slowly. It was a gradual process of transformation. This process can be studied in terms of the process suffered by all post-colonial Literatures, and runs parallel to the process of national differentiation: the emergence of a distinctive lit is parallel to the emergence of a national identity (literary independence only comes with political independence). The process is similar to that of independence of teenagers from their parents (GB as the mother country).
2. Colonial America. Puritans. The dream of a Christian Utopia. Historical Origin of Puritans: Henry VIII. Mary Tudor. Queen Elizabeth. Civil war. The Cromwell’s Republic. The Puritans. Common Points between Anglicans and Puritans. Differences: Anglicans: Believed in Church hierarchy. Believed in the interpretation of the Scriptures. Viewed the Puritans as narrow literalists. Puritans: Believed in Congregations, Believed in the literal truth of the Bible, Viewed Anglicans as blind to corruption. Martin Luther. Opposition to the sale of indulgences: Publication of his 95 Theses, attacking papal abuses and the sale of indulgences (1517). Against the Treasury of Heaven. Only a right relationship with God would bring salvation. John Calvin. Acceptance of complete Sovereignty of God, and of the ultimate inability of man to comprehend His true nature. The doctrine of Predestination. Characteristics: Total depravity. Unconditional election.Limited atonement. Irresistible grace. Perseverance of the Saints. History of the American Puritans. The Pilgrims/Brownists. The Pilgrims were a separatist group who had gone to Holland in 1609 as a result of severe persecution at home. Their leader is Robert Browne (1550-1633). Ideas: The true church is a local body of genuine believers in Christ, united to him and each other by a voluntary covenant. Such a church is self-governing, with Christ as its real head. It chooses its own pastor and other officers, but in reality every member is responsible for every other. No church has authority over any other, and thus there is no ecclesiastical hierarchy. Church is a democratic and autonomous organization. 1620. Plymouth Colony. The Mayflower (with William Bradford). The Mayflower Compact: all members of the group would “covenant and combine themselves into a civil body politic”. Puritan Literature. Puritan writers were not primarily literary figures. Their writing is not properly speaking literary, in the sense that it served non- literary purposes. It has a religious-didactic purpose. Function or purpose. To maintain social order (Literature is a social/religious instrument). Religious-Didactic o To Disclose God’s plan o To Instruct the Community. To explain a mysterious God — mysterious because he is separate from the world. To reveal signs of God’s presence. To glorify God. Genres. Prose: Historical records (Historiography). Diaries, personal narratives, conversion narratives, journals, autobiographies. Sermons, Apocalyptic pronouncements, Jeremiads. Poetry: Meditational /Devotional poem. Language and Style. Emphasis on communication. Simplicity, clarity. Energetically moving, vehement, shattering. Biblical Typology: Biblical Allusions/ Comparisons. Audience: Intelligent, religious, highly-literate. Subject: man’s relation to God. Main Puritan Ideas. Predestination (Calvisnist idea). Justification: The person “justified” (filled with Grace) would then fight to achieve a perfect Christian life: his sanctification. Sanctification if one had the virtue of faith and did not act accordingly, one was breaching the COVENANT contracted with God, and hence could call his wrath upon him. Covenant of grace. A term describing the innermost personal relationship between the Christian and God (an effort to formulate the connection between the finite man and the absolute God; the relationship of the Creator with his created Universe). Jobs principle. Majestic incomprehensibility of God’s actions. Defends that those who try to understand God’s designs are blasphemous (since they try to subjugate God’s will to mortal reason): the decrees of God are inscrutable. EJ. Moby Dick (Melville). The American Consciousness is therefore based on two ideas: Fear and Dream
2.1. Historians. Puritan Historiography Main Puritan Historians: William Bradford, John Winthrop, Cotton Mather and Thomas Shepard. Questions of history: A record of concrete historical facts and the meditation on the unique nature of the present historical moment. Historiography was paramount due to the belief that every earthly event was part of God’s timeless plan: scrupulously reported. Everything could emblemize something. Also, Historiography was the chosen media because of the role they had been chosen to play in the universal drama was exceptional. Furthermore, written history was finally an important mode of instruction. The historian was delivering a lesson. Mayflower. Compact The first colonial agreement that formed a government by the consent of the governed. The Mayflower Compact was signed in 1620 by Pilgrims, English people hoping to establish a settlement in North America. Thanksgiving. Plymouth offered an excellent harbor and plenty of resources but their happiness was shortlived. Ill-equipped to face the winter on this estranged place they were ravaged thoroughly. Somehow they were saved by a group of local Native Americans who befriended them and helped them with food. Soon the natives taught the settlers the technique to cultivate corns and grow native vegetables, and store them for hard days. By the next winter they had raised enough crops to keep them alive. The winter came and passed by without much harm. The settlers knew they had beaten the odds and it was time to celebrate. They celebrated it with a grand community feast wherein the friendly Native Americans were also invited. It was kind of a harvest feast. The recipes entail Indian corn, barley, pumpkins and peas, “fowl” and yes, of course the wild turkey. 2.2. Personal Narrative. The spiritual journey of a single soul as paradigm for the state of the Congregation. Imagery of sickness and death permeates Puritan Literature. Nature: appears as a third channel for communication with God, besides the Bible and direct revelation (an angry God may send violent storms, earthquakes, etc). Structure: o Formulaic (The experiences of conversion, doubt, and spiritual growth) o Individual personality is less important than God’s general ways of dealing with humanity. Theme: The relation of the soul’s struggle against the body, sin and Satan and of its journey toward grace and salvation was a fundamental scenario for diaries and autobiographical narratives. Conversion Narratives Against the fatalistic principles of Calvinism (helplessness, unconditional election, predestination). What must I do to be saved? Preparationship: o Although a person could not earn grace, he could prepare for grace. o It contradicts unconditional election. The American Hero. The tendency to typification continued in American letters way after Cotton Mather and the Puritans. However, in the 19th c. the theory of Types became literary Symbolism. What remained of the type concept in Am Lit is that its characters are not created as freshly conceived individuals, but as based on fixed models, of which the most important are Adam and Christ. This is inherited from the Calvinistic tendency to typification. Christ Figure: not related with the Powerful and wrathful God of the Old Testament, but with the gentle, merciful, humane character of the New Testament: humanization of Christ. Adam Figure: Adam is the American hero par excellence (cf. Lewis: The American Adam). But again, not the Adam of the Old Testament brought down by his sin, but the innocent Adam who feels free of the burden of history and faces the future.
2.3. Sermons and Jeremiads. After 1660, immigration to New England accelerated, and many of the new comers were less pious immigrants who only sought financial opportunities. Therefore, religious favor was beginning to wane. Frustration and dismay spread throughout the 1670s and 1680s. This shared perception of moral deterioration (internal and external tensions) inspired many of the colony’s most interesting literary texts, the trope of decay or decline became central to later Puritan expressions and sermons. Puritan Jeremiads. Sermons adopt a Manichean strategy; with sets of opposites or contraries. This logic tended to foster polarization and extremism: a person is either saved or damned, saint or sinner, virtuous or sinful; there is no purgatory between heaven and hell. Taking their texts from Jeremiah, in which the Prophet chastised the Hebrews for their loss of religious zeal. These sermons followed a rhetorical formula that included: Remember courage and devotion of founders (idealism and success). Lament recent ills (disillusionment, loss, disappointment). Pleas for the congregation to repent and pray for forgiveness. Cry out for a return to original conduct and zeal and a restoration of harmony. Structure A Biblical text, followed by an “Explication”. o The “Doctrine” o ―Propositions” o “Reasons”. o “Application”: how the Doctrine and the Proposition applied to New England. Prophecy of what might follow Theme The main and paramount theme is the approaching of terrible events. The Puritans believed that the Bible and nature/history should both be closely studied for signs of God’s intentions, they were alarmed by some tragic events that occurred in the 16070’s and 1680’s (earthquakes, plagues, storms, fires in towns, suicides, etc. Until the most devastating event: King Philip’s war against the Wampanoag People). Influence Even nowadays, on every 4th of July, speakers across the country hail the founding fathers, criticize present failures, and urge audiences to revive original ideals so that America can fulfill its manifest destiny. From the presidential addresses to works of literature, the Jeremiad appears as a fundamental structure in American expression. Literary works such as Moby Dick, Frederick Douglass, Walden, the Great Gatsby or The Grapes of Wrath have been called Jeremiads because they call for a return to a former innocence and a moral strength that has been lost. 2.4. Puritan Poetry Puritan poetry could really be considered an oxymoron, since Puritan theologians had warned that the senses were unreliable, the appeals to imagination were dangerous, the use of figurative, imagistic or symbolic language, bordered upon idolatry. The Catholics’ and Anglicans’ use of images, emphasis on pulpit eloquence, appeals to congregations through music, ornate vestments, etc. were proofs that artistry invited idolatry. However, after 1650, and thanks to Richard Baxter, a poet himself, metaphor and figurative language was allowed as a positive act. Baxter said that God gave humanity figurative language in order to enhance people’s abilities to perceive His truths, and he highlighted the many uses of rhetorical figures in the Bible. John Winthrop: A Model of Christian Charity (sermon). Mary Rowlandson: The Sovereignty and Goodness of God. A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. MaryRowlandson (captivity narratives). William Bradford: From Of Plymouth Plantation (Book 1, Chapters IX, X; Book 2, Chapter XI). Cotton Mather: Letter to William Stoughton, September 2, 1692. Anne Bradstreet: “The Author of Her Book” and “To My Dear and Loving Husband” (poems). Jonathan Edwards: Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God (sermon).
3. Revolutionary Period and Enlightenment In contrast to the gloomy determinism of Puritan thought was the brief but influential flowering of scientific rationalism known as the Enlightenment. This attitude of mind which cultured the thinking of most influential Americans up to 1800, did much to destroy the Calvinistic conception and to convince man that, far from being the plaything of an inscrutable God, he was rather the master of his fate and the hope of the universe. The Enlightenment (The Age of Reason) Free inquiry, scientific experiment, application of what reason dictates. The American revolution for Independence (a specifically American identity): o taxes should not be levied without representation o men have a right to choose their rulers o many other rights were God-given and inalienable. Deism Man regarded as a rational being inhabiting a rational universe created by a reasonable God. Locke declared that “the works of nature in every part of them sufficiently evidence a Deity― (“A Creation presupposes a Creator―). Discarded the “magic’ (miracles, myths, superstition, etc). Religious Liberalism A belief in God, but not necessarily the God of orthodox Christianity. … the concept of God ranged from the God of Nature of Thomas Paine, through the impersonal Providence of Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin, to the Biblical God of John Adams. An unqualified affirmation of the separation of church and state (Anti-theocratic) A fundamental belief in religious liberty and religious tolerance. According to the founding fathers, America should be a country where peoples of all faiths, including those who profess no religious belief, can live in peace and mutual benefit. Full religious liberty means not only freedom of religion, but freedom from religion. Literature in the Age of Reason Social instrument: communicate new reasonable social values. Logical digressions, methodical analysis. No need for poets, but for diplomats and thinkers (analysts). Themes Outer circumstances: American landscape. American life. The issue of race. The unjust situation of the American Indian. The curse of Negro slavery. Diction; precision, clarity, purity, logic. Benjamin Franklin: The Autobiography (PART I). Thomas Jefferson: The Declaration of Independence. J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur: From Letters from an American Farmer (Letters III, IV, IX, XII). Thomas Paine: Common Sense (essay). Charles Brockden Brown: Wieland: or, The Transformation: An American Tale (novel).
4. The New American Literature After the Declaration of Independence (1776), political independence did not mean cultural independence. In the years after the Revolutionary war many Americans were concerned by the question of the American National Identity and the need to develop distinct American cultural forms, an American language and an American literature. “Americanness” American writers were NOT achieving originality in FORM: Irving’s sentences were accepted as models of English prose style precisely because they were modeled upon the sentences of Addison and Goldsmith (exemplars of English decorum). American form of the novel which Hawthorne later called romance. Romance was a freer, wilder form of fiction than the english tradition one. The romancer, “wishes to claim a certain latitude” beyond that of the novel. Romance occupies that neutral territory between the real world and fairyland, where the Actual and the Imaginary may meet. And it generated its own distinctive literature: guides and manuals for frontier living, Indian narratives, stories of the legendary exploits of frontier heroes, the tall tale, “local color” fiction. The Novel and America Horror is essential to American literature. through gothic images are projected obsessive concerns of american national life but the final horrors are neither gods nor demons, but intimate aspects of our own minds. The American writer lives on the “frontier”: the margin where the theory of original goodness and the fact of original sin come face to face. American fiction is nonrealistic, even anti-realistic, called American symbolism. Themes Nature: The Nature-mystics, Dickinson Religion: Transcendentalism: refers to modes of thought which emphasize the intuitive and the mystical powers of the mind, and the possibility of some higher world or realm of existence beyond the world of the senses. Immigration and xenophobia Politics and war: national sins. (Frederick Douglass) Sex and sexism. Washington Irving: “The Legend of the Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle” (short stories). Edgar Alan Poe: “The Cask of Amontillado,” “The Purloined Letter,” “Some Words with a Mummy,” “The Black Cat” (short stories), The Philosophy of Composition (essay), “The Raven” (poem). Henry David Thoreau: Walden (Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 9, 12, 16). Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Scarlet Letter (novel).Herman Melville: From Moby Dick (Chapters 1, 9, 16, 26, 27, 28, 41, 50, 94, 106, 111, 132, 135, epilogue). Frederick Douglass. Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass An American Slave. Written By Himself.
0. Native American and Explorers. John Smith: The Generall Historie of Virginia, New England and The Summer Isles (Third Book). Resumen: John Smith fell out of favor with the directors of the Virginia Company mostly due to his insistence of increasing food supply and reducing colonist numbers. Despite this, he wrote a series of publications after returning to England in October 1609 about the colonial effort in North America, where he marginalized the Company’s involvement. The Generall Historie was based in large part on information he was given by others, as he had not personally witnessed what had happened in the years between his leaving Virginia and publishing the book. Some episodes may have been fabricated, condensed, or truncated, the most famous perhaps being whether or not he was actually “saved” from death by Pocahontas in 1607 (a fact Smith did not write about until this publication). Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca: Naufragios (Chapters IV, XIV, XV, XXII, XXXII). La única obra en español lmao.
2. Colonial America. Puritans. John Winthrop: A Model of Christian Charity (sermon). Resumen: Delivered on board the ship Arbella on April 8, 1630 while en route to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, although it might have been preached at the Holyrood Church in Southampton before the colonists embarked in the Winthrop Fleet. It is also known as “City upon a Hill” and denotes the notion of American exceptionalism. The sermon was known by reputation and preserved in contemporaneous manuscript copy held by the New-York Historical Society, but it was not published until the 1830s. Partes: Text Doctrine Reason Application. Temas: Exceptionalism Charity Communalism Unity. Mary Rowlandson: The Sovereignty and Goodness of God. A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson (captivity narratives). 1)It was the first captivity narrative in Puritan literature. 2)It was the first captivity narrative written by a woman. 3)It was the first captivity narrative written by a Native American. William Bradford: From Of Plymouth Plantation (Book 1, Chapters IX, X; Book 2, Chapter XI). is the first-hand account of the voyage of the ship Mayflower, founding of Plymouth Colony in modern-day Massachusetts, and the further colonization of the region of the United States now known as New England, written between 1630-1651 CE and covering the period c. Cotton Mather: Letter to William Stoughton, September 2, 1692. Among the notable things about this letter is the provenance: it seems to be the last important correspondence from Mather to surface in modern times, with the holograph manuscript not arriving in the archives for scholars to view, and authenticate, until sometime between 1978 and 1985. begins the September 2 letter by writing that he has “made the world sensible of my zeal to assist… your honour… extinguishing of as wonderful a piece of devilism as has been seen in the world; and yet… one half of my endeavors to serve you have not been told or seen. He asks for Stoughton’s permission and approbation in writing on the specifics of the current trials.
Anne Bradstreet: “The Author of Her Book” and “To My Dear and Loving Husband” (poems). Her poetry is a frequent tension between a passion for the material world -natural beauty, books, home, and family- and the opposite Puritan dictum that the world is corrupt and vile and incomparable to the love of Christ. Although she follows the convention of Puritan Poetry by making a religious, even doctrinal point, the tone of wonder and the vivid natural images suggest competition between the love of this world and the doctrine of divine sovereignty. Main Poetry Bradstreet completed Four Quaternions in the 1640s: The Four Elements (1641-1643), The Four Humours (1641-1643), The Four Ages of Man (1643), The Four Seasons (1643). Jonathan Edwards: Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God (sermon). This was a highly influential sermon of the Great Awakening, emphasizing God’s wrath upon unbelievers after death to a very real, horrific, and fiery Hell.The underlying point is that God has given humans a chance to confess their sins. It is the mere will of God, according to Edwards, that keeps wicked men from being overtaken by the devil and his demons and cast into the furnace of hell – “like greedy hungry lions, that see their prey, and expect to have it, but are for the present kept back [by God’s hand].” Mankind’s own attempts to avoid falling into the “bottomless gulf” due to the overwhelming “weight and pressure towards hell” are insufficient as “a spider’s web would have to stop a falling rock“. This act of grace from God has given humans a chance to believe and trust in Christ. Edwards provides much varied and vivid imagery to illustrate this main theme throughout.
3. Revolutionary Period and Enlightenment
Benjamin Franklin: The Autobiography (PART I). Part One of the Autobiography is addressed to Franklin’s son William, at that time (1771) Royal Governor of New Jersey. While in England at the estate of the Bishop of St Asaph in Twyford, Franklin, now 65 years old, begins by saying that it may be agreeable to his son to know some of the incidents of his father’s life; so with a week’s uninterrupted leisure, he is beginning to write them down for William. He starts with some anecdotes of his grandfather, uncles, father and mother. Eventually James gets in trouble with the colonial assembly, which jails him for a short time and then forbids him to continue publishing his paper. James and his friends come up with the stratagem that the Courant should hereafter be published under the name of Benjamin Franklin. By the time Ben reaches Philadelphia, Andrew Bradford has already replaced his employee but refers Ben to Samuel Keimer, another printer in the city, who is able to give him work. They establish their business, and plan to start a newspaper, but when Keimer hears of this plan, he rushes out a paper of his own, the Pennsylvania Gazette. At this point Part One breaks off, with a memo in Franklin’s writing noting that “The Affairs of the Revolution occasion’d the Interruption”. Thomas Jefferson: The Declaration of Independence. in U.S. history, document that was approved by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, and that announced the separation of 13 North American British colonies from Great Britain. People have certain Inalienable Rights including Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness. All Men are created equal. Individuals have a civic duty to defend these rights for themselves and others.
J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur: From Letters from an American Farmer (Letters III, IV, IX, XII). The work consists of twelve letters that address a wide range of issues concerning life in the British colonies in America in the years prior to the American Revolutionary War. Letter III: “What Is an American?” — Comparison between the physical environment and the societies that emerge from it. Explores the conditions and aspects of the new American country and what constitutes the identity of its citizens. Letter IV: “Description of the island of Nantucket; with the manners, customs, policy and trade, of the inhabitants Letter IX: “Description of Charles Town; Thoughts on Slavery; on Physical Evil; a Melancholy Scene” — An account of “Charles Town” (now Charleston), particularly on the institution of slavery in the town and in the Southern United States. It argues about the destruction that revolves around the slave-master relationships and makes an appeal to the North, in particular, that slavery is a truly evil practice in the midst of the new nation of America. Letter XII: “Distresses of a Frontier Man” — Description of the impending American Revolutionary War and James’ turmoil at being caught between forces—American and British—beyond his own control, including anxiety over to whom he owes his allegiance. Also considered is the way of life of Native Americans, with whom James and his family intend to live at the close of the book. Thomas Paine: Common Sense (essay). Common Sense is a 47-page pamphlet written by Thomas Paine in 1775–1776 advocating independence from Great Britain to people in the Thirteen Colonies. Writing in clear and persuasive prose, Paine marshaled moral and political arguments to encourage common people in the Colonies to fight for egalitarian government. Charles Brockden Brown: Wieland: or, The Transformation: An American Tale (novel).
4. The New American Literature
Washington Irving: “The Legend of the Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle” (short stories).
Edgar Alan Poe: “The Cask of Amontillado,” “The Purloined Letter,” “Some Words with a Mummy,” “The Black Cat” (short stories), The Philosophy of Composition (essay), “The Raven” (poem).
Henry David Thoreau: Walden (Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 9, 12, 16).
Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Scarlet Letter (novel).
Herman Melville: From Moby Dick (Chapters 1, 9, 16, 26, 27, 28, 41, 50, 94, 106, 111, 132, 135, epilogue).
Frederick Douglass. Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass An American Slave. Written By Himself.