American Literature Background
статья по английскому языку (11 класс)

American Literature        

                             Historical Background  

 The Western Hemisphere had already been reached by courageous  Scandinavian seafarers in the  10th century but actual discovery of America as made during Renaissance period in the 16th century. In search of a shorter and safer trade-route from Europe to Asia, Christopher Columbus landed on some island near Cuba in 1492 which he mistook for India. The misunderstanding  was cleared up a few years later when Florentine Amerigo Vespucci explored that cost and found that it was not India.  So new continent was called America after the name of the undoubted discoverer.

 More than a century was spent on compassing both Americas. The northen part was first explored by Bristol merchant and his son who sailed direct west from England across Atlantic and then Henry Hudson (English navigator). The southern continent was explored by the Spaniards and the Portuguese.

At first their only aim of these white adventures was to get gold. That is why they were more interested in the southern part of the continent: there lived numerous rich tribes of Indians, some of them highly civilized.  Spaniards used the most murderous means (like cut-throats and others). Eventually Spanish settlement appeared on the Haiti and Cuba, but it was only in the 17th century that colonization of America really started.

                               Colonization

 Four European countries were Spain, Holland, France and England. They  colonized different parts of America. North was colonized by Spain. The Dutch founded colonies around the mouth of Hudson River. London merchants organized a company for starting farming colonies in Virginia. The King of England appointed the governors in these colonies. But colonization of America on a large scale began in the 17th Century. Lots of poor peasants who had lost their land in Britain and Germany were forced to leave native countries and search for new homes across the Atlantic.  In September 1620 a ship “Mayflower” set sail from Plymouth with pilgrims on board. More than one hundred of them survived and reached the shores of America. While being on board the ship they singed a pact called the Mayflower Compact. The main occupation of them was agriculture. They drove the native Indians off their hunting grounds and took the land for their own use. Some people did not want to obey the laws and they moved to some other places. In the 18th century a bitter struggle was fought between the ruling classes of England, France, Holland and Spain to determine to which country the American continent should belong. But the New World had been inhabited by the Red Indians when Europeans came. They lived in tribes. Hunting and fishing was their main occupation. The natives met the first Europeans with hospitality but soon they were cheated and plundered by the white men (pale-faces) as they called. Newcomers took their land to raise tobacco, cotton, sugar; then they tried to capture Indians. But they were not good slave: in captivity they died like flies. So the colonists started bringing convicts from the prisons of Europe and Negroes from Africa as slaves. Though slavery was legal only in  Southern colonies. The hardships Negroes had to suffer during the voyage to America were  terrible. During the following decades the black population of America increased rapidly. Not only Negroes were brought and sold. The shipping companies also organized the kidnapping of white children of 12 or 13 years of age. They were sold as slaves to the planters. This buying and selling of immigrants continued long after the colonies became the Unites States.  

The Beginning of National Literature in America

 The settlements of New England developed rapidly. Ten years after the landing of Mayflower Pilgrims 20.000 (twenty thousand) people lived in the colony and they were from England. And it was here in New England that the literature of the new American nation appeared. The Pilgrim Fathers played a historical role in this. Many of them were men of learning with university education. They brought books on various subjects to America. They opened schools for the children and in 1636 founded Harvard College, the first American University. They also set up the first printing press and published the first books. But there were the American Puritans who were religious fanatics, they wanted to subjugate everyone to their dogmatic discipline. The schools taught their religion to the children, the university trained clergymen for Protestant Churches. The only book they recommended for home reading was the Bible. They also printed various histories, journals and theological tracts! The authors of these works were far from being professional writers. This led to brutal cruelty. Free thinkers (as witches) were hysterically persecuted. Witch-hunting increased towards the end of the 17th Century. This was consequence the Pilgrim Fathers had not quite foreseen. Hundreds of innocent men and women were imprisoned hanged and burnt. The power of Puritan theocracy lasted for three generations. The first writers who fought for democracy in colonies were Thomas Hooker, Roger Williams and John Wise and their works became part of American national literature. There was little contact between South and North. American Literature is independent and it is connected with the history of the country and should not be considered as a branch of British literature because it is written in the English language.