Literature of British Colonization

The colonial period in American literature extends from the Virginia and Massachusetts settlements of the 17th century through the Great Awakening, a religious revival in the 1740s, till the 1750s that brought about radical changes in social, political and religious life. During this period, scattered English settlements grew into a group of colonies ready to declare themselves a nation.

Americanliterature of this period at first was naturally a colonial literature, written by authors who were Englishmen loyal to the Crown and who thought and wrote as such. Meanwhile, Great Britain experienced Renaissance with its rebirth of interest in arts and sciences, based upon rediscovery of classical Greek and Latin texts about strange lands and pagan gods, epic wars and superhuman heroes. The privileged form of writing was poetry, especially epic poetry. Other forms included the pastoral and the lyric, and later socioeconomic changes gave rise to verse satire. Prose was dominated by travel literature, both informative and utopian, later complimented by the developing romance, like the Cervantes' Don Quixote.

Thus, practically all American colonial writing developed within the framework of these genres, followed British literary tradition, used British folklore and imitated the popular Elizabethan style. The language of colonial American literature was English, the culture – ethnocentric Christian, viewing English colonization as a God-given right.

The most important writings in the 1600's were produced by the colonies in New England and, to a smaller extent, Virginia. Such development of American colonial literature had clear historical grounds.

From the beginning of colonization, there were important differences between the Southern and the New England colonies. The rich aristocratic planters of the South were slow to develop a literature of their own. The plantations were self-sufficient and isolated from each other, the owners saw literature as entertainment and preferred books imported from England, their children were educated in England, acquiring the English tastes and standards. But in New England, the Puritan settlers had come to the New World in order to form a society based on strict Christian beliefs. Therefore they had a far stronger sense of unity, a 'shared purpose' and so – a sympathetic audience. Besides, Puritans saw literature as an important means to comprehend and explain their faith and so approached writing professionally[2]. And so American culture and literature developed much faster in the North than in the South.

But early settlers of both Virginia and New England were first of all concerned with colonizing the land and had little leisure and opportunity for writing. Early American writings of the 17^th century were mainly utilitarian, devoted to spiritual concerns and to practical matters of politics and promotion of settlements. To depict life in the New World, record and advertise their endeavor, American authors wrote accounts of travels and geographical discoveries, histories of colonization, reports of Native American wars and captivities in the form of diaries, letters, travel journals, ship's logs and reports for bankers. Biographies, treatises, and sermons were written to teach moral lessons; pamphlets argued political issues.

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