summary american lit

[khalilnanou]

American Literature
An authentically American Literature
I. Writing the territory : the literature of discovery and exploration
Started as a vision in Europe : it is a product of literary imagination. America existed only as a literary object that was represented in the writings of Europeans who first visited America. They brought back their own visions, written in Spanish or French and not in English.
16th century : the English knew about America through outside texts, not from English texts.
1670’s : English mariners started exploring the North American coast.
The creation of American literature goes hand in hand with the first permanent colonies at Jamestown, Plymouth, Boston, Charleston or Philadelphia. In the ********, American in temperament and in tone, the literature of the colonists was different from the exotic narratives of the explorers (i.e. "land of miracles", "eldorado"). The literature of the colonists shows a contradictory mixture of terror and exaltation before the magnitude of the land.
However, more often than not, the literature of the first settlers shows that it was difficult to maintain a positive attitude toward America. George Percy’s Discourse on the Plantation (1607) shows that the writers saw America as a land of "meadows and goodly tall trees" and people as "miserable distressed". So there are full of ambivalence and contradictions. America is the land of the new beginning and opportunities but also a beautiful land of difficulties (sacrifices, isolation, and hard work). Ambivalence is an important factor of American literature. This first contradictory experience will mark American literature with its most nasty and characteristic voice, created out of actions rather than imagery or contemplation.
The narratives of Captain Smith are big examples of the American new character : the narration of the internal life of the individuals goes hand in hand with the external description of the land. There’s a constant dialogue between the mind of the individual and Nature. It’s always Nature that has a strong effect on the mind of the individuals. Human minds only change with confrontations with Nature.
European literature was more based on contemplation whereas American literature was a concrete experience with Nature : that makes a huge philosophical difference. Captain Smith wrote :
• A true relation (1608)
• A map of Virginia (1612)
• The general Historie of Virginia, New England and
the Summer Isles
The work of Capt. Smith is representative of a specific literary character in the sense that they show a deeply American theme : the theme of the relations between geographical exploration and individual exploration : by discovering the land, the individual also discovers himself. Self-exploration and geographical exploration came together. With the change of the colonies and their social needs, there was also a change in writings. The writer’s role now consisted in more than observing and depicting the land.
At the end of the 17th century, American literature still showed the discovery of literature : same themes, same lyricism, poetic quality and sense of actions but despite this influence, a more abstract type of literature was now emerging. For instance, William Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation (1630-1650) concentrates on the complexity and difficulties of colonial administration as well as a social organization of the community.
In the final analysis, the ambivalence of exploration and discovery in American literature reveals another kind of ambivalence. It is the ambivalent relationship but also the ambivalent contrast between the positive and the negative, good and evil, utopia and tragedy. This type of ambivalence remains the most characteristic territory explored by the first writers of America. Emerging from the magnitude and the complexity of the land itself, this ambivalent vision would determine the American literary and popular imagination. Even today, it still represents a very important aspect of the American literary sensibility.
II. An authentically American literature ? Textual appropriations, generic influences and innovations
To many observers, the idea of an authentically American literature seems to be a paradox. Many would think American literature emerged and developed in the shadow of the English literary tradition. However, this paradox is only apparent : the authentically American literature is like every literary innovation, it always needs some influences for inspiration.
At the same time, those influences are little by little changed through authentic innovations (first they borrowed, then they changed). In this sense, literary texts of the New World are both an extension of English literature and a new creative body of literature. The relationships of continuity between English and American literature comes from a common cultural and national heritage : religious, ethnic, historical and linguistic relationships.