The History of American Literature

We do not have an original literary history We do not have an original literary history. Our history is born out of Europe and the land that is now was special because it represents all of Europe’s hopes for hundreds of years. Therefore the concept of when “American Literature” stats is hard to estimate. “The idea of America as an exceptional place somehow different from all others endures to this day, but it is not a myth of modern American nationalism or recent political rhetoric. It is an invention of Europe as old as Western History.” From “The Puritan Legacy”

Thomas More’s “Utopia” inspired Amerigo Vespucci (the man from whom we get the name America) to search for this ideal world.

John Smith (1607) was the first Englishman to write a book about America and his purpose was two fold: first to dispel much of the golden myths around America; and second, to begin the adventurous and missionary spirit that was to bring many to the New World.

Just 14 years later in 1620, The Pilgrim Fathers settled Plymouth Plantation and expanded on Smith’s original purpose. “But now the voyager was not the explorer or the planter but the Pilgrim, entering new space and new history. The plot (of these writers was) providential; God guides these encounters between the traveler and the not yet written New World. The myth remains shaped by European sources, but now one source above all, the Bible, and especially it’s opening chapters, Genesis and Exodus, the tale of the Chosen People and the Promised Land. For the Puritans the essential tale was a religious one of travail and wandering with the Lord’s guidance, in quest of a high purpose.” – The Puritan Legacy