Colonial+American+Period

Colonial American literature


 * Events:**
 * 1636-** Harvard college founded.
 * 1638-**The first colonial printing press is set up in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
 * 1681-** Pennsylvania is founded,
 * 1706-** Ben Franklin is born on Junuary 17th.

- Works were heavily influenced by British writers. - Works consist largely of historcal and teaching material.
 * Characteristics:**

Robert Beverley, another wealthy planter and author of //The History and Present State of Virginia// (1705, 1722) records the history of the Virginia colony in a humane and vigorous style. The black American poet Jupiter Hammon, a slave on Long Island, New York, is remembered for his religious poems as well as for //An Address to the Negroes of the State of New York.//His poem "An Evening Thought" was the first poem published by a black male in America. William Bradford was elected governor of Plymouth in the Massachusetts Bay Colony shortly after the Separatists landed. He was a deeply pious, self-educated man who had learned several languages, including Hebrew, in order to "see with his own eyes the ancient oracles of God in their native beauty." The first published book of poems by an American was also the first American book to be published by a woman, Anne Bradstreet. Born and educated in England, Anne Bradstreet was the daughter of an earl's estate manager. She emigrated with her family when she was 18. Her husband eventually became governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, which later grew into the great city of Boston. She preferred her long, religious poems on conventional subjects such as the seasons, but contemporary readers most enjoy the witty poems on subjects from daily life and her warm and loving poems to her husband and children. Michael Wigglesworth, like Taylor an English-born, Harvard-educated Puritan minister who practiced medicine, is the third New England colonial poet of note. He continues the Puritan themes in his best-known work, //The Day of Doom// (1662). A long narrative that often falls into doggerel, this terrifying popularization of Calvinistic doctrine was the most popular poem of the colonial period.
 * Authors of the period:**
 * //Robert Beverley (c. 1673-1722)//**
 * //Jupiter Hammon (c. 1720-c. 1800)//**
 * //William Bradford (1590-1657)//**
 * //Anne Bradstreet (c. 1612-1672)//**
 * //Michael Wigglesworth (1631-1705)//**

__//The Day of Doom- Michael Wigglesworth//__ Poem is meant to represent a throng of infants at the left hand of the final Judge, pleading against the sentence of infant damnation __//Upon the Burning of Our House- Anne Bradstreet//__ After her house burning down she rejects the anger and grief that this worldly tragedy has caused her and instead looks toward God and the assurance of heaven as consolation. __//Of Plymouth Plantation- William Bradford//__ A detailed history in manuscript form about the founding of the Plymouth colony and the lives of the colonists from 1621 to 1646. __//The City Upon the Hill- John Winthrop//__ The “City upon a Hill” section of the sermon called “A Model of Christian Charity” was written in 1630 by the Puritan leader John Winthrop while the first group of Puritan emigrants was still onboard their ship, the Arbella, waiting to disembark and create their first settlement in what would become New England. //__SInners in the Hands of an Angry God- Jonathan Edwards__// A sermon written by American Christian theologian Jonathan Edwards, preached on July 8, 1741 in Enfield, Connecticut.
 * Major Works:**

//__**The Joy Of Church Fellowship Rightly Attended- Edward Taylor**__// In Heaven soaring up, I dropt an Eare. On Earth: and oh! sweet Melody! And listening, found it was the Saints who were Encoacht for Heaven that sang for Joy. For in Christs Coach they sweetly sing, As they to Glory ride therein Oh! joyous hearts! Enfir'de with holy Flame! Is speech thus tasseled with praise? Will not your inward fire of Joy contain, That it in open flames doth blaze? For in Christs Coach Saints sweetly sing, As they to Glory ride therein. And if a string do slip by Chance, They soon Do screw it up again: whereby They set it in a more melodious Tune And a Diviner Harmony. For in Christs Coach they sweetly sing, As they to Glory ride therein. In all their Acts, publick and private, nay, And secret too, they praise impart. But in their Acts Divine, and Worship, they With Hymns do offer up their Heart. Thus in Christs Coach they sweetly sing, As they to Glory ride therein. Some few not in; and some whose Time and Place Block up this Coaches way, do goe As Travellers afoot: and so do trace The Road that gives them right thereto; While in this Coach these sweetly sing, As they to Glory ride therein.
 * Poem:**