usa literature in brief.pdf

LITERATURE

IN BRIEF

USA

Literature

In Brief

E XECUTIVE E DITOR : G EORGE C LACK • A UTHOR : K ATHRYN V AN S PANCKEREN •

E DITOR : P AUL M ALAMUD • D ESIGNER : C HLOE D. E LLIS

• C OVER I LLUSTRATION S ALLY V ITSKY • C OVER D ESIGN M IN Y AO

U.S.A.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

of Tampa, has lectured in American literature widely abroad,

and is former director of the Fulbright-sponsored Summer

Institute in American Literature for international scholars. Her

publications include poetry and scholarship. She received her

Bachelors degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and

her Ph.D. from Harvard University.

K athryn VanSpanckeren, professor of English at the University

CHAPTER 1

EARLY AMERICAN WRITING

“The First Thanksgiving, 1621,” by J.L.G. Ferris, depicts America’s early settlers and Native

Americans celebrating a bountiful harvest. Courtesy Library of Congress.

orally transmitted myths, legends, tales, and lyrics (always

songs) of Indian cultures. Native American oral tradition is

quite diverse. Indian stories glow with reverence for nature

T he foundation of American literature begins with the

as a spiritual, as well as physical, mother. Nature is alive and

endowed with spiritual forces; main characters may be animals

or plants, often totems associated with a tribe, group, or

individual.

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.”

Contemporary Native American writing, discussed in chapter 8,

also contains works of great beauty.

The irst European record of exploration in America is in a

Scandinavian language. The Old Norse Vinland Saga recounts

how the adventurous Leif Eriksson and a band of wandering

Norsemen settled briely somewhere on the northeast coast of

America—probably Nova Scotia, in Canada—in the irst decade

of the 11th century.

The irst known and sustained contact between the

Americas and the rest of the world, however, began with the

famous voyage of an Italian explorer, Christopher Columbus,

funded by the Queen of Spain, Isabella. Columbus’s journal in

his “Epistola,” printed in 1493, recounts the trip’s drama.

Initial English attempts at colonization were disasters. The

irst colony was set up in 1585 at Roanoke, of the coast of North

Carolina; all its colonists disappeared. The second colony was

more permanent: Jamestown, established in 1607. It endured

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