American literature includes written work produced in the United States area and its preceding colonies. During the country’s early history, America was a series of British colonies on the eastern coast of today’s USA. This means that American literature is actually part of a broader English literary tradition. Unique American characteristics developed as the country grew and is now considered a separate literature.
In the 1630s, there was large immigration to the Boston area. Due to this flux of immigrants, the high articulation of Puritan cultural ideas and the establishment of a college and printing press in Cambridge, the New England colonies have always been regarded as the centre of early American literature.
The first item printed in Pennsylvania was in German and was the largest book to be printed before the American Revolution. Spanish and French were the two strongest colonial literary traditions. There was also a wealth of oral literary tradition that existed among many Native American groups. Political events, however, made English the literary language of choice. When the English conquered New Amsterdam in 1664, they renamed the area New York and changed the language from Dutch to English.
In England, restrictive laws had confined printing to four locations: London, York, Oxford, and Cambridge. From 1696 to 1700, only 250 items were issued from major printing presses in the American colonies. But in comparison, printing was established in the American colonies before it was allowed in most of England. Writings in the colonies were pamphlets and literature that extolled benefits of the colonies to both a colonial and European audience.
Early writing topics also included religious disputes that prompted for settlement in America. There were many journal and diary writings. Some wrote for the separation of state and church, others discussed the religious foundations, and still others cared little for the church and mocked the religious settlers.
One of the earliest books of poetry published was a set of translations of the biblical Psalms. Most Puritan poetry was highly religious in nature. The translators’ intentions was usually to create hymns for worship, not to write good literature.
Cotton Mather, a second generation New England settler stood out as a writer of the history of the colonies. He was a theologian and historian that wrote with a view to God’s activity and connecting Puritan leaders with the great heroes of Christian faith.
Southern literature was represented through writings of different lifestyles of the Native Americans. William Byrd of Virginia wrote a diary that described white settlers in the area. In a similar book, author William Bartram described the Southern landscape and the Native American peoples he encountered.
As the American colonies broke away from England, discussion about the American culture and identity surfaced through works such as by French immigrant J. Hector St. Joh de Crevecoeur. This same period also saw the birth of African American literature – through poetry of Phillis Wheatley, and after the Revolution, a slave narrative by Olaudah Equiano. Native American literature was also first written at this time.
Wikipedia contributors. “American literature.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 20 Nov. 2013. Web. 27 Nov. 2013.
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