Key Concepts in Early American Literature

Posted on Apr 12, 2025 in English Studies

Early Encounters and Colonial Beginnings

Who were the first Europeans in North American shores? Scandinavians – 11th century.
The land bridge that connected Northeastern Asia to Northwestern NA in the ice age was: present-day Bering Strait.
How many culture areas of NA Indians did Europeans encounter? 8
NA was home to: more than 50 language families.
How many types of literary production can be found until 1620? 3
Two of them are: shipwreck literature and writings of witnesses.
Who was unfairly imprisoned and exiled in 1551 for defending the rights of Native Americans? Núñez Cabeza de Vaca.
The first promoter of NA resources to the English audience was: Thomas Harriot.
The first permanent English settlement in NA was: Jamestown.
The shipwreck account that inspired Shakespeare’s The Tempest was: John Smith’s shipwreck on the Bermuda.
The fugitive record of countless European sailors were brought to literary attention by: The Principal Navigations (1580-1600).
The literary origins of “Manifest Destiny” for Europeans: Works of John Smith.
Literary origin of The European American Dream: General History of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles.
The written record of “the lost colony” of Roanoke Island is: A Brief and True Report of the Newly Found Land of Virginia (1586).
When Shakespeare referred to NA as the “brave new world” he was inspired by the work: Principal Navigations.
The promoter of colonization in NA for English audiences was: John Smith.
This first publication was based on: a badly edited version of a letter he sent to a friend not to be published.
First English book written in NA: A True Relation of Such Occurrences and Accidents of Note as Hath Happened.
Who wrote Adventures in the Unknown Interior of America (1542): Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca.
Europe’s first apologist and defender of Native Americans rights: Bartolomé de las Casas.
It was based on: Oral arguments to persuade royal commission to frame the new law code.
Who wrote The Very Brief Relation of the Devastation of the Indies (1552): Bartolomé de las Casas.
Columbus first letter: addressed to Luis de Santángel (1493).

Puritanism and Early American Identity

Where does the word pilgrim come from? From the Bible.
As a test of election, for church membership it was required: autobiographical conversion narratives.
For Puritans, Covenant means: contract between God and the elect.
Biblical typology consists in: interpreting the events of the Old Testament as foreshadowing the future.
How is individualism important for the Puritans? Each member of the community is an example of the elected nation.
The objective of Puritan literature is: to disclose God’s plan.
Puritan writing was: communicative.
Among Puritan literary genres there is no: drama.
Of Plymouth Plantation was written by: William Bradford.
“A city upon a hill” is mentioned by: John Winthrop in A Model of Christian Charity.
The mastermind of the Salem witch trials was: Cotton Mather in The Wonders of the Invisible World.
Roger Williams wrote: A Key into the Language of America.
The first poetess of the New World was: Anne Bradstreet.
Anne Bradstreet’s Poetry Collection was called: The Tenth Muse (1650).
Edward Taylor’s collection of unpublished poems: defy the role of the poet in Puritan terms.
The slave trade regularly used the Atlantic trade route and existed from: 16th to 19th century.
The Enlightenment meant: emphasis on reason rather than authority.
Deism meant: an attempt to reconcile science with religion.
Who is a representative of The Great Awakening? Jonathan Edwards.
Jonathan Edwards most popular sermon delivered in MA in 1739 is: Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.
The Quakers were mostly based in: Philadelphia.
The best example in English of Quaker spirit is found in: The Journal of Woolman (1774).
The Plymouth settlement was founded by: Puritans who were separatists.

Revolution and the Age of Reason

The narrative of successful men in America can be found in: Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography.
Benjamin Franklin’s mottos are found in his: Poor Richard’s Almanac.
Letters from an American Farmer (1782) is written by: Hector John Crevecoeur.
Which events lead to the American Revolution? 1764 Stamp Act, 1770 Boston Mob, 1773 Tea Party.
Which are the main representatives of the first stream of pamphlets in the colonies? Samuel Adams, Samuel Seabury, John Dickinson.
Which one was in favor of the independence? Samuel Adams.
Who wrote Common Sense (1776)? Thomas Paine.
Who wrote The American Crisis (1776)? Thomas Paine.
Who wrote Rights of Man (1791-92)? Thomas Paine.
Alexander Hamilton co-authored the: Federalist Papers.
Thomas Jefferson wrote: Notes on the State of Virginia.
In this age of reason, the main objective of literature was: to communicate new social values.
In the Enlightenment the main genres are: Newspapers and essays.

Early American Fiction and Romanticism

The first two U.S. fictional writers are: Hugh Henry Brackenridge and William Hill Brown.
Judith Sargent Murray wrote in 1790: On the Equality of the Sexes.
Phillis Wheatley wrote: Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773).
The Romantic Movement reached US around: 1820.
Romantic ideas centered around: art as an inspiration.
The Romantic spirit: looked to the inspired imagination for ethical values.
The rise of Gothic horror responds to: an interest on the supernatural.
The essential Myth of America, timeless, like the wilderness, was first articulated by: James F. Cooper.
Washington Irving wrote in 1820: The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon.
The Fall of the House of Usher was written by: Edgar Allan Poe.
Poe insisted in the importance of the creative work of the art, not the artist. True.
Poe’s definition of poetry is based on truth, not pleasure. False.
To understand The Raven Poe wrote: Philosophy of Composition.

Transcendentalism and Social Reform

Transcendentalist premises are rooted in: unity of the world with the Divine/The Universe.
In Nature (1836) Emerson provides: Nature is a vision of an original eternal beauty.
Transcendentalist premises of non-conformism are developed in: Thoreau’s Walden, or Life in the Woods.
When and where did the first Woman’s Right Convention in the US took place? Seneca Falls, NY 1848.
The split within the first Woman’s Right movement was rooted in: women’s oppression is more important than slave’s oppression.
In The Scarlet Letter, who do the townspeople speculate is Pearl’s father? The devil.
What does Hester’s letter A signify in the eyes of the people of the town in the end? Able.

Margaret Fuller and Transcendentalism

The Great Lawsuit: Man versus Men. Woman versus women.

Writer’s Style and Writer’s Purpose: In this work, Margaret Fuller wrote it in first person narrator, including herself in the problems and the injustices she complained about. She exposes the situation of the world from her point of view and the situation of women and society, pointing out what should be changed for the human being to progress. Margaret Fuller cited characters from mythology (from Greece, Egypt, Rome…), comparing them to women and the situation of women in her days. Her purpose in this work was to inform about women’s position and calling for the equality and the expansion of women’s rights. Fuller also wanted to persuade with the objective of obtaining the equality between women and men, and she tried to do this with negative connotations towards men. Another Fuller’s objective was to spread her way of understanding life (transcendentalism).

Temporal and Geographical Background: This work was written by Margaret Fuller (1810-1850). She was born in May 23, 1810 in Cambridgeport, Massachusetts. She was a writer, journalist, critic and women’s rights advocate; she also was a slave’s rights advocate. Fuller was associated with the American Transcendentalism. She received an early education by his father, Timothy Fuller, who was severe with her. Later, when she grew up, she became a teacher, and she started Conversations, which she created with the purpose to give women an opportunity to have access to education, giving them the same opportunity that the opposite sex (men) have. In these Conversations she made an effort to relate past and present, choosing subjects as Fine arts, Religion and Greek Mythology. In 1840 she became the first editor of The Dial, a transcendentalist journal. 5 years later (1845) Woman in the Nineteenth Century was published. She also became the first female correspondent, being sent to Europe for the Tribune. She was involved with the revolutions in Italy, where she met Giovanni Ossoli, and she had a child with him.

The Transcendentalism (1815-1836) was a movement created in reaction against the 18th century rationalism. It was a philosophical and literary movement based on the belief of the innate goodness of humanity and the predominance of the intuition over the logic to acquire knowledge. This movement was a manifestation of the humanitarian trend, and it is based on the belief in unity of the world with God, the Divine and the Universe. This movement was a doctrine of self-reliance and individualism. It supports an ethical commitment to abolitionism and women’s movement. Transcendentalism was intimately connected with Concord (a Transcendental club, 1836). Transcendentalism does not have a manifesto. This movement insisted on individual differences, spreading a unique point of view of the individual. Transcendentalism pushed the radical individualism to the extreme with the theory of lonely explorers outside society and convention. This movement created utopian communities as the Brook farm (e.g. Hawthorne’s The Blithedale Romance).

Regarding to the Anglo-European feminist movement, on December 4, 1833, was founded the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS). It was created by Arthur Tappan, William Lloyd Garrison and other sixty people.

Social and Cultural Context: Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) was a writer from the same period as Margaret Fuller. One of the main works of Ralph Waldo Emerson was Nature (1836), which is wrote based on Individualism and Transcendentalism. In his work he discusses the nature and its meaning, he express the uses of nature and what we can obtain from them, he questions the reality of the material world, the relationship with God and give ideas for future improvements. Emerson had a religious sense of mission. He was accused of disturbing Christianity. He had a strong belief in intuition and flexibility. Ralph Waldo Emerson spreads and individualism inspired by nature with arguments as the need for a new national vision, the use personal experience, the doctrine of Compensation and the notion the cosmic Over soul. It is can be appreciated the Transcendentalism in his work, showed by the insistence on individualism and the connection between nature and religion.

Margaret Fuller can be related to Judith Sargent Murray (1751-1820). She was an advocate for women’s right, as Margaret Fuller was. Murray was one of the first Americans that proposed the idea of the equality of sexes, because she supported that women had the same capabilities of men.

Her most important work is an essay, On the Equality of the Sexes (1790). This work prepared the way for new thoughts and ideas, and opened the way to other feminist writers of the century.

Frederick Douglass and the Slave Narrative

Writer´s Style and Purpose: Although Douglass’s language may seem a bit stilted to us today, his style is usually pretty straightforward. He wants you to understand him, so he doesn’t write long or complicated sentences, and he tries to speak informally, as if it were just you and him. Still, he does sometimes use a kind of elevated language, and parts of the book can be a bit difficult. It might be that he’s emulating the style of the King James Bible, one book that almost all of his readers would be familiar with. Frederick Douglass wrote his first autobiography as a means to prove that he was who he claimed he was, a fugitive slave. As an agent for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society he toured the country giving speeches.

Temporal and Geographical Background: In the mid-nineteenth century, when Douglass wrote the Narrative, the United States was becoming divided over the issue of slavery. In the North, a growing abolitionist movement that had started in the late eighteenth century began to gather momentum as its leaders made every effort to spread their antislavery message. They held meetings, gave lectures, published antislavery newspapers, and traveled across the country to spread their message. Meanwhile, in the South, slaveholders rigidly held on to their view that slaves were useful only as laborers that helped sustain their agricultural economy. White people, in both the North and the South, continued to treat slaves as inferior beings, in most cases denying them any legal protection. Realism mainly focused on events that were relatable and reflected the hard times in which they were living in. The story of Frederick Douglass focused on the time period of slaves and the harsh treatment they received, and presented the story in a very real way. “It rekindled the few expiring embers of freedom.”

Social and Cultural Context: In the early 1840s, the abolitionist, or anti‑slavery, movement was gaining momentum, especially in the far Northeast. When Douglass first arrived in Massachusetts, he began reading the Liberator, the abolitionist newspaper edited by William Lloyd Garrison. In 1841, Douglass attended an abolitionist meeting in Nantucket, Massachusetts, where he met Garrison and was encouraged to tell the crowd about his experiences of slavery. Douglass’s spoken account was so well‑received that Garrison offered to employ him as an abolitionist speaker for the American Anti‑Slavery Society. From 1841 to 1845, Douglass traveled extensively with Garrison and others through the Northern states, speaking nearly every day on the injustice and brutality of slavery. Douglass encountered hostile opposition and, most often, the charge that he was lying. Many Americans did not believe that such an eloquent and intelligent Negro had so recently been a slave. Douglass encountered a different brand of opposition within the ranks of the Anti‑Slavery Society itself. He was one of only a few black men employed by the mostly white society, and the society’s leaders, including Garrison, would often condescendingly insist that Douglass merely relate the “facts” of his experience, and leave the philosophy, rhetoric, and persuasive argument to others. Douglass encountered a different brand of opposition within the ranks of the Anti‑Slavery Society itself. He was one of only a few black men employed by the mostly white society, and the society’s leaders, including Garrison, would often condescendingly insist that Douglass merely relate the “facts” of his experience, and leave the philosophy, rhetoric, and persuasive argument to others.

Interpretation and Relevance: Douglass’s 1845 Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself can be seen as a response to both of these types of opposition. The Narrative pointedly states that Douglass is its sole author, and it contains two prefaces from Garrison and another abolitionist, Wendell Phillips, to attest to this fact. Douglass’s use of the true names of people and places further silenced his detractors who questioned the truthfulness of his story and status as a former slave. Additionally, the Narrative undertook to be not only a personal account of Douglass’s experiences as a slave, but also an eloquent antislavery treatise. With the Narrative, Douglass demonstrated his ability to be not only the teller of his story, but its interpreter as well. Douglass’s Narrative can be read as a contribution to the literary tradition of American Romantic individualism.