American literature from 1600 through the 1850s

238 Pages·2011·9.017 MB·English

by  Augustyn, Adam

Published in 2011 by Britannica Educational Publishing
(a trademark of Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.)
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First Edition
Britannica Educational Publishing
Michael I. Levy: Executive Editor
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Lisa S. Braucher: Senior Producer and Data Editor
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Adam Augustyn: Assistant Manager and Assistant Editor, Literature
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Introduction by Greg Roza
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
American literature from 1600 through the 1850s / edited by Adam Augustyn. — 1st ed.
p. cm. -- (The Britannica guide to world literature)
“In association with Britannica Educational Publishing, Rosen Educational Services.”
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-61530-233-8 (eBook)
1. American literature—17th century—History and criticism.
2. American literature—18th century—History and criticism.
3. American literature—19th century—History and criticism.
4. American literature—17th century—Bio-bibliography.
5. American literature—18th century—Bio-bibliography.
6. American literature—19th century—Bio-bibliography.
7. Authors, American—17th century—Biography.
8. Authors, American—18th century—Biography.
9. Authors, American—19th century—Biography. I. Augustyn, Adam, 1979-
PS185.A395 2011
810.9—dc22
2010004573
On the cover: American literature was entering a renaissance period by the time the works of
Nathaniel Hawthorne (left) and Walt Whitman were published in the mid 1800s. SuperStock/
Getty Images (Hawthorne); Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division (Whitman)
Pages 20 (map), 222, 223, 225, 228 © www.istockphoto.com/Vasko Miokovic; pp. 20 (books),
21, 33, 73, 120 © www.istockphoto.com
22
CONTENTS
Introduction: 10
Chapter 1: Early American
Literature 21
John Smith 25
The State of Verse 25
Michael Wigglesworth 26
Bay Psalm Book 29
31
The Story of Mary
Rowlandson 29
Chapter 2: The 18th Century 33
Great Awakening 34
Writers of the Revolution 36
Poor Richard 37
Thomas Paine 38
The New Nation 45
Notable Works of
the Period 49
Poetry 49
38
Drama and the Novel 49
Other Signifi cant Figures
of the Century 50
Joel Barlow 50
Robert Montgomery Bird 52
Hugh Henry
Brackenridge 53
Charles Brockden Brown 54
William Hill Brown 56
William Byrd of
Westover 57
55
Timothy Dwight 58
Olaudah Equiano 59
Elizabeth Graeme
60
Ferguson 62
Hannah Webster Foster 63
Philip Freneau 64
Sarah Kemble Knight 65
Sarah Wentworth
Apthorp Morton 67
Susanna Rowson 68
Mercy Otis Warren 69
Phillis Wheatley 70
Chapter 3: Early 19th-
Century Literature 73 71
Willliam Cullen Bryant 73
The North American
Review 75
Washington Irving 76
James Fenimore Cooper 79
Early Years 79
Novels 82
Cultural and Political
Involvement 85
Return to America 86
Edgar Allan Poe 100
83
Life and Writings 102
Appraisal 105
Sarah Helen Power
Whitman 108
Other Signifi cant Writers
of the Age 109
Maria Gowen Brooks 110
Joseph Dennie 111
Joseph Rodman Drake 112
James Hall 113
John P. Kennedy 114
104
James Kirke Paulding 115
115
John Howard Payne 116
William Gilmore Simms 117
Chapter 4: The American
Renaissance 120
New England Brahmins 121
Oliver Wendell Holmes 121
Brahmin 122
Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow 123
James Russell Lowell 127
124
Seba Smith 130
The Transcendentalists 130
Unitarianism 132
Ralph Waldo Emerson 132
Transcendentalism 139
Henry David Thoreau 140
Bronson Alcott 148
Orestes Augustus
Brownson 150
George Ripley 152
Jones Very 153
New England Reformers 149
and Historians 153
George Bancroft 154
Richard Henry Dana 157
Margaret Fuller 158
William Lloyd Garrison 160
Slave Narrative 164
Edward Everett Hale 167
Julia Ward Howe 168
John Lothrop Motley 169
Francis Parkman 170
161
Harriet Beecher Stowe 174
183
John Greenleaf Whittier 176
Hawthorne, Melville,
and Whitman 179
Nathaniel Hawthorne 181
Herman Melville 189
Walt Whitman 198
Free Verse 206
Epilogue 222
Glossary 223
Bibliography 225
Index 228 199