MODULE EL114- SURVEY OF ANGLO-AMERICAN LITERATURE

CHAPTER 6

Objectives:
a. Recognize the different writers in the contemporary and modern era .
b. Identify the various literary works made by the contemporary and
modern writers.
c. Relate the literary piece to the student‘s life, experience and society
which they belong.

CONTEMPORARY AND MODERN WRITERS:

EMBRACING NEW TRIALS, RETURNING IDEALS

- Many critics have observed in

contemporary works the characteristics of
charm, gracefulness, even strength, and
elements of distinguished originality.
- The writings during the war years were
spontaneity and a maturity born of
suffering.
- The favorite themes were resignation,
suffering, bitterness, and the impassioned
return of the soul to dear memories.
- This spirit of moral rebellion seems to
have influenced the young poets of the
post-war days. Immediately after the war,
the imagist movement was the dominant
influence.

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- The imagist avoided all abstractions, so he or she was sparing in the use of language
and restricted his or her notations to indispensable elements.
- There seemed to be a relative scarcity of great writers in the period after the war.
- This was probably an inevitable result of the cumulative pressure of disturbing social and
technological developments accelerated by that war.
- Good literature was still written despite the lack of major reputations and despite the
possibly transitional nature of much of the period's work in a variety of styles and
subjects.
- In recent years the literary developments seem controlled both by the inner needs of
national minds and by circumstances of the time.
- How far these factors will influence the literary output remains to be seen.

LITERARY READINGS

The Quarrel
It is common for brothers and sisters to quarrel, although sometimes they may not even be able
to say why they quarrel. But how long do such quarrels last? How do they end?

I quarreled with my brother

I don‘t know what about,

One thing led to another

And somehow we fell out.

The start of it was slight,

The end of it was strong,

He said he was right,

I knew he was wrong!

We hated one another.

The afternoon turned black.

Then suddenly my brother

Thumped me on the back,

And said, ―Oh, come along!

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We can‘t go on all night —

I was in the wrong."

So he was in the right.

Eleanor Farjeon

- For more information and knowledge about the Romantic period

literature please visit the following links:
[Link]
[Link]/english/westmank/old/literary/contempbrit_resources.html
[Link]
a. contemp
orary-literature

References:
Language In Literature- Anglo-American Literature-Arkaina et. al., Vibal Group, Inc.

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NATIONAL BEGINNINGS:
THE COLONIAL EXPERIENCE

- In the turbulent times after the death of Queen

Elizabeth great historic events influenced the
politics and government of England.
- It was in these troubled times that a group of
Separatist Puritans left for the Americas in
search of a place where they could worship
freely.
- While England was swinging from Royalist to
Protectorate and back to Royalist, the
American colonies were being established
on the Atlantic coast; a wilder ness was
being opened up and readied for a nation
yet unborn.
- The Cavaliers or Royalists, wanting to
build new homes with wider areas of land

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and larger prospects of wealth, gave up their estates in England.

- Together with their indentured servants (servants under legal obligation to work for their
masters), some adventurers and some jail birds, they joined a company organized by
Captain John Smith.
- It was this com-pany that settled at Jamestown, Virginia,
- Another group, mostly Puritans who sought reforms of the church from within, settled in
what is now Boston.
- The Pioneers were busy settling down, making a living and defending themselves from
hostile Indians, written works were of a practical nature--a mixture of travel accounts and
religious writings.
- “America is a poem in our eyes”: its ample geography dazzles the
imagination, and it will not wait long for meters.
- The words are those of Ralph Waldo Emerson, and they sum up that desire to
turn the New World into words that have seized the imagination of so many
Americans.
- But America was only one of the several names for a dream dreamed in the first
instance by Europeans.
- For a while, this imaginary America obliterated the history of those who had lived
American lives long before the Europeans came. American Literature has roots
in Indian culture.
- Indian culture was represented by orally transmitted myths, legends, epics,
tales, and songs. Native Americans' literary sources were pagan.
- Indian tribes worshiped animals, plants. The Indian contribution to America is
greater than is often believed.
- The hundreds of Indian words in everyday American English include canoe,
tobacco, potato, moccasin, moose, persimmon, raccoon, tomahawk, and totem.
- American literature is the youngest literature, but one of the richest influential
kinds of literature in the world.
- It was founded by white immigrants; it was under
the influence of the English literature for a long time
and cannot be called American proper.
- Early American Literature was puritan. Genres: an
interesting mixture of travel accounts and religious
writings.
- The English described the colonization of the New
World and the first settlement in New England. First
books - diaries, travel guides, dealing with the
experience of newcomers. Initial English attempts
at colonization were disasters.

THE FIRST COLONY

- The first colony was set up in 1585 at Roanoke, off

the coast of North Carolina; all its colonists disappeared.

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- The second colony was more permanent: Jamestown, established in 1607. It

endured starvation, brutality, and misrule. However, the literature of the period
paints America in glowing colors as the land of riches and opportunity.
- In the 17th century, pirates, adventurers, and explorers opened the way to the
second wave of permanent colonists, bringing their wives, children, farm
implements, and craftsmen's tools.
- England eventually took possession of the North American colonies, the best
known and most anthologized colonial literature is English. The story of American
literature begins in early 1600.
- The earliest writers were Englishmen describing the English exploration and
colonization of the New World (America).
- ―Thomas Harriot`s Briefe and True Report of the New Found land of Virginia‖
(1588) was only the first of many such works. Back in England, people planning
to move to Virginia or New England would read the books as travel guides.
- But it was dangerous because
such books often mixed facts
with fantasy. People could
certainly read them as tales of
adventure and excitement. Like
modern readers of science
fiction, they could enjoy
imaginary voyages to places
they could never visit in reality.
- Captain John Smith a real
adventurer, who left Thomas
Harriot descriptions of New
England and Virginia, described
one of the first settlements:
Jamestown colony. He was a romantic; he beautified events (between fiction and
non-fiction).
- The writing of Captain John Smith (1538-1631) True Relation of Virginia
(1608) and Description of New England (1616) are fascinating advertisements
which try to persuade the reader to settle in the New World, and the Puritans
(believers in a simple Christian religion without ceremony) followed his advice
and settled there in 1620.
- Smith was often boastful about his own adventures in his books. His General
History of Virginia, New England, and the summer Isles (1624) contain the story
of his rescue by a beautiful Indian princess Pocahontas. The story is probably
untrue, but it is the first famous tale from American literature. His Elizabethan
style was not always easy to read, and his punctuation was strange even for the
17th century.
- The Puritans almost from the beginning, as the English settled along with
Captain John Smith (self-portrait) Atlantic coast of America, there were important
differences between the Southern and the New England colonies.

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- In the South, enormous farms or plantations used the labor of black slaves to
grow tobacco. The rich and powerful plantation owners were slow to develop a
literature of their own.
- They preferred books imported from England. But in New England, the Puritan
settlers had come to the New World to form a society based on strict Christian
beliefs. Like the Puritans in England, who were fighting against the English kings,
they believed that society should be based on the laws of God.
- They had a far stronger sense of unity and of a shared purpose. This was one of
the reasons why culture and literature developed much faster than in the south.
- Harvard, the 1st college in the colonies, was founded near Boston in 1636 to
train new puritan ministers.
- The first printing press in America was started there in 1638, and America`s first
newspaper began in Boston in 1704.
- Puritans tended to feel that earthly success was a sign of election.
- Wealth and status were sought not only for themselves but as welcome
reassurances of spiritual health and promises of eternal life. The Puritans felt that
in advancing their profit and their community's well-being, they were also
furthering God's plans.
- The great model of writing, belief, and conduct were the Bible, in an authorized
English translation. The great antiquity of the Bible made it authoritative to
Puritan eyes.
- Puritan literature the most interesting works of New England Puritan literature
were histories.
- To the Puritans, history developed according to God`s plan. In all of their early
New England histories, they saw New England as the Promised Land of the
Bible.
- The central drama of history was the struggle between Christ and Satan of
Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford (1590-1657) is the most interesting of
the Puritan histories. It describes the Puritans` difficult relations with the Indians.
It also describes difficulties during the 1st winter, when half of their colony died.
This is all told in a wonderful plain style which the Puritans admired.
- To present the clear light of truth to uneducated readers, Puritan writers avoided
elegant language. The examples they used were drawn either from the Bible or
from the everyday life of farmers and fishermen. At the same time, Bradford`s
history is deeply influenced by the belief that God directs everything that
happens.

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For more information and knowledge about the Colonial literature of America
please visit the following links:
[Link]
timeline/colonial-settlement-1600-1763/
-
[Link]
[Link]

Reference:
Language In Literature- Anglo-American Literature-Arkaina et. al., Vibal Group, Inc.

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