Literature of the Colonial Period

When French, Germans, Spanish, Dutch, and mostly English come to America, they try to kill Indian people who don't obey their rules. They force them to be alcoholics, to take drugs. When Europeans settled down on the north side of America and called this place New England, Indians had to go to the east side. Indians don't have any guns, and they are so hospitable, so they don't get how European people can be cruel. They lack education, exact culture, science, writing language, cooperation, and a certain language. European people used these factors to erase the Indian race. They bring literature with them, but it is not American literature because of the immigrants. They are mostly English, and they write sermons, travel accounts, essays, and poems. They write about their travels by ship in these works, and the themes are mostly religion.

Puritans think human beings are evil and everyone would go to hell. They just think about hard work, thrift, piety, and sobriety. These are the Puritan’s values. Cotton Mather and John Cotton are the Puritan writers. Mather writes about the Puritan idea of hard work. His works are mostly about religion. Anne Bradstreet was a major poet at that time. She has a big influence on other writers. She writes about the rule of women. She writes about her feelings for her friends and family who stay in Europe. Michael Wigglesworth is a writer and a Puritan. His most famous work is The Day of Doom. It is a religious poem. It is about judgment. He says most people would go to hell, and God decides the fate of men by signing a bright light at midnight. Briefly, he tells what will happen on judgment day and adds there is no escape. Benjamin Franklin is a statesman, scientist, and author. His most famous work is an autobiography. He writes his own story as a lesson for the reader, but he is a modest person. It is like how-to-do-it work. Washington Irving is an American author. He writes some short stories. The most famous one is Rip Van Winkle. It is a humorous tale by him. He creates American mythology with this work. The character sleeps for 20 years, and when he wakes up, he realizes the world is different and his country has a new nation now. Actually, in the story, his wife symbolizes the queen of England, and he symbolizes America, which stays under the queen of England.

The Romantic era begins with James Fenimore Cooper. 1820-60 was the romantic era in America. He writes some frontier novels. The most famous one is The Last of the Mohicans. He says whites and Indians can be friends in his works. He uses noble, savage words for Indian people because he thinks Indian people respect nature. He talks about cowboys, too. Philip Freneu is also romantic. He thinks America is a separate nation. He writes some poems about nature because he is romantic. The future of his country was always a subject of interest for poet and citizen Freneau. America's first great nationalist poet. While on sea duty, he was captured by the British and placed abroad on a prison ship, an experience that inspired a long poem entitled The British Prison Ship. He wrote some other long poems, but he was at his best in his short lyrics, such as The Wild Honey Suckle. Many of these short works, including "On the Emigration to America," "The Indian Burying Ground," and "To the Memory of the Brave Americans," deal with American subjects. One of America's first naturalist poets is William Cullen Bryant. Bryant turned to nature as a source of poetic inspiration. "Thanatopsis," the name of his most famous nature poem, is a Greek word meaning "view of death." He is also romantic. Bryant loves nature and respects it like Indians. Death is good for him; he does not think about hell, opposite to Puritans. In some of Bryant's poems, his love of nature was modified to include the belief in a God who guides man's destiny both in life and in death. "To a Waterfowl" is one of Bryant's best-known poems. He writes about the spiritual sustenance to be found in nature and of the beauty of brooks, trees, and flowers.