Early American Literature
Early American Literature
Pre-Colonial Period: Dominated by oral traditions, including lore, songs, and folklore, reflecting a lack of written language.
Colonial Literature (17th and 18th Century): Primarily practical, religious, and socio-political, often serving to inform governance and shape public sentiment during the formation of the United States.
Early Republican Period: Emerged in the late 18th century as less practical and more artistic, reflecting a new national identity forged by the American Revolution and focusing on political writings.
Native American Traditions
Characterized by the oral transmission of stories, a sacred view of nature, and diverse storytelling techniques, often featuring figures like the trickster coyote.
Puritans in New England
Puritans, as religious refugees, sought to establish a "city upon a hill" in New England after fleeing persecution rooted in Henry VIII's break from the Catholic Church. Their communities in Massachusetts were founded on strict religious practices and a fervent desire to purify the Church of England, impacting every aspect of life from governance to social conduct.
Puritan literature predominantly served didactic purposes, aimed at guiding personal conduct towards piety and reinforcing their theological doctrines, emphasizing communal responsibility and individual accountability to God.
Impact of Puritanism on American Literature
The inherent suspicion of pleasure and frivolity within Puritanism significantly curtailed the development of theatrical arts, leading to a much slower emergence of theater in American culture compared to Europe.
Puritan values profoundly shaped American individualism, laying foundational ideological groundwork for concepts like the 'American Dream' and the rise of capitalism, where material success was often interpreted as a sign of divine favor or being among the "elect."
Themes of predestination, divine providence, and the constant struggle between good and evil are pervasive in Puritan literature, reflecting their core worldview.
Key Takeaways on Puritan Beliefs (TULIP)
Total Depravity: Doctrine stating that humanity is inherently sinful and corrupt from birth, incapable of saving itself without divine intervention.
Unconditional Election: The belief that God, by His sovereign will, chooses certain individuals for salvation entirely based on His grace, not on any foreseen merit or deed.
Limited Atonement: The conviction that Christ's atoning sacrifice on the cross was specifically intended for and effectively granted to only the "elect" (the chosen ones) to secure their salvation.
Irresistible Grace: The theological point asserting that when God extends His saving grace to the elect, it cannot be refused or resisted; it inevitably leads to conversion and faith.
Perseverance of Saints: The assurance that true believers, once saved by God's grace, will continue in faith until the end, incapable of losing their salvation.
What Fear Can Teach Us
Overview of the Talk
Karen Thompson Walker argues that fear is not just an emotion to suppress but a form of storytelling—an imaginative act where our minds create possible future narratives.
She illustrates this with the story of the whaleship Essex (a true early 19th-century incident that inspired Moby-Dick), where sailors faced fears of starvation, cannibalism, and being stranded. Their choices were shaped by which fears they gave weight to.
Connection to Early American Literature
Exploration, Risk, and Survival
Early American literature—from Puritan writings to captivity narratives—often grappled with uncertainty and survival.
The sailors’ story echoes works like Mary Rowlandson’s A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration, where fear shapes both the narrative and moral lessons.
Just as Walker shows fear guiding decision-making, Rowlandson and other early writers used fear (of Native Americans, of wilderness, of divine punishment) to frame their experiences.
Moral Dimensions of Fear
Early American authors frequently tied fear to morality or providence.
Jonathan Edwards in Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God presents fear as a divine tool for salvation.
Similarly, in the Essex story, fear dictated not just practical survival but moral choices—should one risk cannibalism or face possible annihilation?
Walker emphasizes that fear has a moral weight, much like early sermons did.
Imagination as a Literary Device
Walker equates fear with storytelling—our minds “writing” potential futures.
This parallels early American literature’s blending of fact and imagination: the Essex tale itself was both lived history and the seed for Melville’s Moby-Dick.
Early explorers and Puritans often dramatized their accounts, turning real fear into allegorical or moral narratives.
Literary Analysis
Fear as Narrative Structure:
Fear organizes the sailors’ decision-making in the same way that plot structures early American texts: problem → fear response → resolution.
Fear as Characterization:
Just as characters in colonial or revolutionary writings reveal themselves through their response to crisis (Rowlandson’s piety, Edwards’s sinners trembling), the sailors’ fears illuminate their values.
Fear and the American Experience:
Early American literature reflects a culture defined by uncertainty—new land, fragile communities, encounters with the unknown.
Walker’s framing of fear as “stories we tell ourselves about the future” resonates with the way early Americans projected fears onto the frontier, Native peoples, or divine judgment.
"Upon the Burning of Our House, July 10th, 1666"
Written in six-line stanzas of rhyming couplets, the poem recounts Bradstreet's emotional and spiritual response to her house burning down.
Begins by expressing initial sorrow at the sight of her house burning, quickly followed by an act of submission and gratitude to God:
"I blessed His name that gave and took."
Reflects a strong Calvinistic perspective, interpreting the fire as a divine lesson for becoming too attached to transient, earthly possessions:
"Didst fix thy hope on moldering dust, / The arm of flesh didst make thy trust?"
"Raise up thy thoughts above the sky, / That dunghill mist away may fly."Shifts focus to a glorious, permanent heavenly house, conceptualized as built by God and filled with spiritual riches:
"Thou hast an house on high erect, / Framed by that mighty Architect;"
"With glory richly furnished, / Stands permanent though this be fled."
"It's purchased and paid for too / By Him who hath enough to do."
"There's wealth enough, I need no more; / Farewell my health, my store."Concludes by definitively renouncing worldly affections and redirecting all hope and treasure towards heaven:
"The world no longer let me love, / My hope and treasure lies above."
Sinners In the Hands of an Angry God
God’s Wrath and Human Precarity
Jonathan Edwards' sermon vividly portrays humans as precariously suspended over hell, held aloft by "only the power and mere pleasure of God," with "nothing between you and hell but the air."
God is depicted as infinitely abhorring sinners, considering them "ten thousand times so abominable" as a venomous serpent, and His wrath burns like an inextinguishable fire.
The sermon emphasizes that personal efforts or virtues are utterly insufficient for salvation; only God's sovereign hand actively prevents immediate damnation for the unregenerate.
Sinners are metaphorically described as "hang[ing] by a slender thread," constantly at risk of falling into a "great furnace of wrath," highlighting their extreme vulnerability.
Inability to Save Oneself
There is "no interest in any mediator" for those without grace, nor "nothing of your own" (i.e., good deeds or inherent merit) that can induce God's mercy or hold back His judgment.
Unconverted individuals are labeled "vessels of wrath fitted to destruction," for whom God will show no pity, underscoring their hopeless condition without divine intervention.
Imminent Danger for the Unregenerate
The sermon powerfully warns that those who remain unconverted face immediate and inescapable damnation at any moment. Their present existence is solely due to God's temporary forbearance, which can cease at any instant, plunging them into eternal torment without warning. Edwards's address aimed to instill profound fear to prompt immediate repentance and conversion.
Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death
Visual and auditory imagery appears throughout the speech:
Chains and bondage imagery: "bind and rivet upon us those chains"; "Our chains are forged!"; "clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston!"
Martial and war imagery: references to fleets, armies, martial array, war-like preparations; the inevitability of conflict is personified as a rock-solid reality.
Nature and divine imagery: "the God of nature hath placed in our power"; "the God of Hosts"; appeals to fate and divine justice.
Siren metaphor for deceptive hope: "the illusion of hope" and "the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts."
Lamps and beacon imagery: "lamp by which my feet are guided" (metaphor for experience guiding judgment).
Senses appealed to:
Auditory imagery dominates through mentions of chains, clanking, the clash of resounding arms, the song of a siren, and voices in debate.
Visual imagery appears in descriptions of banners, fleets, armies, and the looming threat of force.
Figurative language used and purpose:
Metaphor: chains, lamp, siren, darkness/vision imagery, God as a presiding judge and ally.
Repetition and parallelism: repeated questions (e.g., "Shall we"); parallel clauses to reinforce inevitability and call to action.
Personification: the Parliament and ministry described as conscious actors (plotting, inviting force) rather than neutral bodies.
Are they effective?
Yes: imagery intensifies fear of tyranny and urgency of action, while evoking nobility and divine support, helping persuade an audience toward resistance and war.
Textual evidence of imagery/figurative language:
"the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts"
"bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British ministry have been so long forging"
"Lamps by which my feet are guided; and that is the lamp of experience"
"Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty"
"The war is inevitable—and let it come!"
Sentence variety and structure:
The speech oscillates between short, punchy statements and long, elaborate sentences, creating a rising cadence and escalating urgency.
Examples of short statements (impact speech acts): "This is no time for ceremony."; "Let us not deceive ourselves."; "I repeat it, sir, we must fight!"; "The war is inevitable—and let it come!"
Examples of long, complex sentences (logically chained clauses):
"Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offence, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the majesty of heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings."
"Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled, that force must be called in to win back our love?"
Use of questions:
Rhetorical questions to engage listeners and provoke reflection, e.g.,
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?"
"Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction?"
"Can gentlemen assign any other possible motive for it?"
Direct address and address terms:
Frequent direct address: "Mr. President," "Sir," "Gentlemen" to create immediacy and group identity.
Effects:
The syntax reinforces a progression from cautious critique to emphatic insistence on resistance, mirroring the speaker’s persuasive arc from doubt to moral certainty.
Described in the transcript as: urgent, resolute, defiant, and morally charged.
Tone shifts:
Initial cautious respect for others’ opinions and the office, e.g., "No man thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism…" followed by bold, uncompromising declarations (e.g., "we must fight!", "An appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left us!").
Tone purpose:
To persuade an audience to accept the necessity of armed resistance and to set the moral stakes of liberty versus tyranny.