The Beginning of American Tradition

1. The Beginning of American Tradition 1400-1760

2. Overview of Unit • Theme- the meaning of America • American dream • Conflicts • Expectations and reality • Theme- self-transformation • Purifying human nature • Return to Eden-like conditions • Personal renewal • genres • Nonfiction • Diaries • Travel accounts • Histories • Speeches • Sermons • Biblical translations • Fiction • poetry

3. Overview Continued • Goal of writing • Historical preservation • Preservation of cultural attitudes • Results of writing • Influence on later writers • Preview of readings • Native American Perspective • Italian and Spanish explorers • The first settlers • Puritans • Southern settlements

4. Native American myths • 1400-1600 • Came to N. America from Asia/Polynesia • Land bridge- Alaska • Clovis people • New Mexico • 35,000 years ago • Natural selection • Diversification to rest of continent • Origins and creation myths • Oral literature • Repeated over generations • Recorded in 1800 and 1900s by others • Characters • Animals- anthropomorphism • humans

5. Explorers • Columbus 1492 • First cultural differences • Historical • Diaries • Ship logs • Exploration • Spanish explorers • Descriptions of new world • Reasons to travel to America • Trade routes to China • Fountain of youth • Earthly paradise • Cures for diseases • Wrote about exploration

6. Settlers • Late 1500s • Great move to settle • Jobs/money • Land • Food • hunters • Trappers • Roanoke, NC • Mystery • Literature- • advertisements • Jamestown, Virginia • 1607 • English • Wealth • Ill-prepared • No gold- tobacco • John Smith • Pocahontas • NA/English relationships

7. The Puritans in the North • 1620 • Plymouth, MA • English • Religious persecution • Church of England vs Puritanism • Fled England • Holland and other countries • America • Basic beliefs • Grace • God granted change of feeling • Introspection • Spiritual autobiography • Plainness • Speech, dress, church, life • Divine mission • America appointed by God for Puritans

8. More Puritans • Cotton Mather • Magnolia Christi Americana • Lives of leaders • Conflicts with NA • Salem witchcraft • Genres • Diaries, letters • Poetry • Bradstreet • Taylor • Psalms • The Bay Psalm Book • Plain translations from Bible • Stiff, no flow • Verse • Wigglesworth • Simple for children • Judgment day- punishment • Popular and common theme

9. The South- A Planter Society • Single family plantations • Self-sufficient • Slaves • Warm/humid • Church of England • Generous, self-controlled gentlemen • Writings on nature and society • Wrote for amusement/diversion • Theater welcomed • The North • Village settlement • Few slaves • Colder • Puritanism • Zealous, soul-smashing believer • Writings on religion • Wrote for instruction/inspiration • No theater- banned

10. Authors • Native Americans • Spanish Explorers • John Smith • William Bradford • Mary Rowlandson • Anne Bradstreet • Edward Taylor • William Byrd • Phyllis Kemble Knight

11. Themes that span literary time • Feeling- examine/purification • Plainness • Divine mission • Ideal public service • Closeness to land • Special qualities of life in America • New discoveries