Colonial writing – the 17 and the first half of the 18 centuries (1608-1765)

The story of American letters has its beginnings in Europe, for the roots of their culture are grounded in the life of the Old World. Only in their surroundings were the seventeenth-century immigrants American. In race and in civilization they were merely transplanted Europeans, who brought to the colonies unchanged Old World speech, manners, politics, and religion. The Colonists thought as Europeans, and, when they wrote, they discussed issues of interest in Europe, and followed European models of style. Yet from the very beginning, their Old World manner of life was modified by their new environment.

Distinctions in social rank, which were taken for granted in Europe, had soon to be materialized by conscious effort in the colonies; and as the settlements moves westward, they tended to disappear.

Colonial literature was, therefore, the product of 2 basic forces:

1. The European cultural heritage,

2. The American environment (wilderness).

The American colonists wrote histories to record their activities, sermons to teach moral lessons, and pamphlets to argue political points. Even their poems discussed religious and moral subjects.

Thus, most of the first immigrants came from north-western Europe. Gradually during the 17^th century their settlements formed three regions:

Northern Colonies (New England)

Middle Colonies

Southern Colonies

• not only climatic conditions were different in them, but also economical, social and spirituals developments differed greatly.

New england

(now comprises the following states:

Man, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rod-Island, Connecticut)

• was founded by puritans, who were the representatives of religious Protestantism, they fought for the

Reformation of the English Church. In England Puritans used to establish numerous secrete churches where they swore allegiance to the community, not to the king. For this they were prosecuted and declared as traitors and adherents of the religious heresy. Later they decided to leave England for America and establish there New England.

Moving over the ocean, puritans believed that, God bestowed upon them a great mission – that one of salvation. They considered themselves chosen by God to save and purify the world and humanity from sins, sinful life, and profligacy.

The establishment of a new church was meant to become a hindrance, to prevent the proliferation of Satan’s power that has already captured the Old World.

The key to understand this reality was the Bible, its reading and its interpretation occupied central place in their spiritual life, and literacy was considered to be the essential condition.

Puritans longed for spiritual victory, hard work and deprivation were percived as its constituent elements.

Welfare and good luck were thought to serve as signs of providence, being chosen by God; misfortune “spoke” about divine warning and anger. The reasons for disasters people sought in their own weaknesses and sins. These attitudes gave rise to the cultivation of the following puritanical qualities: industry, ambition, desire to succeed, self-analysis, self-estimation, aspiration to correlate their deeds with the moral law.