The English Literatures of America: 1500-1800

by Jehlen, Myra;

• ISBN13: 9780415908733
• ISBN10: 0415908736
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1996-11-25
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

The English Literatures of Americaredefines colonial American literatures. Sweeping from Newfoundland and Nova Scotia to the West Indies and Guiana, This anthology survey the emergence of Anglo-American cultures in the first dramatic period of the European empires. The book begins with the first colonization of the Americas and stretches beyond the Revolution to the early national period. Placing the literary culture of the settlements in the context of other colonies as well as the growing cosmopolitan culture of the British empire itself, this lively reader contains numerous dialogues across the Englis Atlantic world. While historically sound and thorough, thi anthology responds to current interests,for example, the global context of national cultures; the relation between colonial histories and cosmopolitan culture; or the omissions and margins of the literary record. The English Literatures of Americaoffers a wide range of voices,including women writers on both sides of the ocean, early English-language texts of Native Americans, and writings of Africans both slave and free, in London as well as in the American colonies. It includes texts from elite as well as common cultures, Puritans in New England as well as Puritans in the West Indies, regional cultures in the colonial South as well as the grand cosmopolitan culture of imperial London. The organization ofThe English Literatures of Americainvolves a thorough rethinking of colonial American literature while retaining the standards of the American canon. American literatures are for the first time presented in an international and colonial context. Not only do new texts appear; familiar ones have new significance. The Puritans can be read as they understood themselves, i.e., as NewEnglish. Many texts are collected here for the first time in any anthology. Others are recognized masterpieces of the canon--bothBritish and American--that for the first time can be read in their Atlantic context. Here, for example, are Francis Bacon, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope and Adam Smith, as well as Bradstreet, Wheatley, Edwards and Franklin. Despite the unparalleled scope of this anthology, many texts are given complete rather than in snippets. These include Hariot'sBrief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia, Aphra Behn's playThe Widow Ranter, numerous essays by Benjamin Franklin and others. By emphasizing the culture of empire and by representing a transatlantic dialogue,The English Literatures ofAmericaallows a new way to understand colonial literature both in the United States and abroad.

Table of Contents

General Introduction	xvii
One: The Globe at 1500
The Expansion of Europe	3	(36)
from The Travels of Marco Polo, c. 1298	7	(1)
Marco Polo
from The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, 1356	8	(2)
Sir John Mandeville
from History of Florence, 1525	10	(1)
Niccolo Machiavelli
letter to the King and Queen of Castile (first voyage), 1493	11	(6)
Christopher Columbus
letter to Pier Soderini, 1504	17	(12)
Amerigo Vespucci
letter to the King and Queen of Castile, 1499	29	(1)
King Manuel I
Nahuatl accounts of the conquest of Mexico, 1528 and after	30	(9)
Two: The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
Learning to Say ``America'' in English	39	(62)
from The Great Chronicle of London, 1502	42	(1)
the first printed account of America in English, 1511	43	(1)
from Utopia, 1516	44	(3)
Sir Thomas More
from A New Interlude and a Merry of the Nature of the Four Elements, 1519	47	(2)
John Rastell
from translation of Peter Martyr, 1555	49	(2)
Richard Eden
from The Voyage Made by Master John Hawkins, c. 1566	51	(1)
John Sparke
an account of Francis Drake, before 1586	52	(2)
Lopez Vaz
from A True Discourse, 1578	54	(4)
George Best
four views on plantation
the elder, 1578	58	(1)
Richard Hakluyt
1583	59	(1)
Christopher Carleill
1583	60	(2)
Edward Hayes
1583	62	(1)
Sir George Peckham
from The Complaint of England, 1587	63	(1)
William Lightfoot
A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia, 1588	64	(26)
Thomas Hariot
a 1536 case of English cannibalism, 1590	90	(1)
Richard Hakluyt
from The Discovery of the Large, Rich and Bewtiful Empire of Guiana, 1596	91	(4)
Sir Walter Ralegh
from ``Of the Caniballes,'' 1580	95	(1)
Michel de Montaigne
from ``Of Coaches'' (1580)	96	(1)
Michel de Montaigne
``Of Plantations,'' 1625	97	(3)
Francis Bacon
Definition of ``colony,'' from The Planter's Plea, 1630	100	(1)
The English Diaspora	101	(94)
from A True Reportory of the Wrack and Redemption of Sir Thomas Gates, Knight, 1610	104	(4)
William Strachey
from A Map of Virginia, 1612	108	(8)
John Smith
from A Description of New England, 1616	116	(6)
John Smith
five letters from America
1619	122	(1)
John Pory
1623	123	(3)
Richard Frethorne
1623	126	(1)
John Baldwin
1629	127	(1)
George Calvert
Anonymous, 1631	128	(1)
A Declaration of the State of the Colony in Virginia, 1622	129	(17)
Edward Waterhouse
from The Generall Historie of Virginia, 1624	146	(3)
John Smith
The Tragical Relation of the Virginia Assembly, 1624	149	(1)
journal of a voyage to New England, 1629	150	(1)
Francis Higginson
from ``A Modell of Christian Charity,'' 1630	151	(9)
John Winthrop
from Gods Promise to His Plantations, 1630	160	(1)
John Cotton
journal of a voyage to the West Indies, 1631	161	(3)
Sir Henry Colt
from New England's Prospect, 1634	164	(4)
William Wood
from New English Canaan, 1634	168	(7)
Thomas Morton
another version of the maypole episode	175	(1)
William Bradford
from Of Plymouth Plantation, 1630-50	176	(16)
William Bradford
from Mourt's Relation, 1622	192	(1)
a Nauset prophecy, 1648	193	(1)
Thomas Shepard
an Indian prophecy, 1672	194	(1)
George Fox
Seventeenth-Century Anglo-America: Virginia and the Indies	195	(110)
from A Counter-Blaste to Tobacco, 1604	198	(2)
James I
on tobacco, from the Generall Historie, 1624	200	(1)
John Smith
from A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbados, 1657	201	(18)
Richard Ligon
from A Loving Invitation to Repentance and Amendment of Life, 1660	219	(3)
Richard Pinder
Anonymous Great News from the Barbadoes, 1676	222	(2)
two accounts of Bacon's Rebellion Nathaniel Bacon, Manifesto, 1676	224	(3)
from History and Present State of Virginia, 1705	227	(6)
Robert Beverley
The Widow Ranter; or the History of Bacon in Virginia, 1689	233	(59)
Aphra Behn
from The Buccaneers of America, 1684	292	(5)
John Esquemeling
letter to Daniel Horsmanden, 1690	297	(2)
William Byrd I
from A Trip to Jamaica, 1698	299	(6)
Ned (Edward) Ward
Seventeenth-Century Anglo-America: New England and Canada	305	(124)
from the journal, 1633-48	308	(7)
John Winthrop
from the journal of a voyage to New England, 1639	315	(1)
John Josselyn
a visit to John Eliot's Indian mission, 1646	316	(2)
Thomas Shepard
Indians and imps, 1652	318	(1)
John Eliot
from the diary, 1653-55	319	(3)
Michael Wigglesworth
``To My Dear Children,'' 1660s	322	(3)
Anne Bradstreet
The Relation of my Voyage, being in Bondage in the Lands of the Irokoits, 1665	325	(24)
Pierre-Esprit Radisson
The Soveraignty and Goodness of God, 1682	349	(33)
Mary Rowlandson
from the diary, 1692-1720	382	(6)
Samuel Sewall
Lithobolia; Or the Stone-Throwing Devil, 1698	388	(12)
Richard Chamberlain
from A Trip to New England, 1699	400	(4)
Ned Ward
The Declaration and Confession of Esther Rodgers, 1701	404	(4)
John Rogers, Jr.
``An Essay Against Periwigs,'' c. 1702	408	(7)
Nicholas Noyes
Journal, 1704-5	415	(14)
Sarah Knight
Seventeenth-Century Anglo-America: The Trials of Puritanism	429	(60)
the Antinomian controversy
from The Examination of Mrs. Ann Hutchinson at the Court at Newtown, 1637	434	(7)
Ann Hutchinson
from A Short Story of the Rise, Reigne, and Ruine of the Antinomians, Familists and Libertines, 1644	441	(2)
John Winthrop
the Keayne controversy John Winthrop from his journal, 1639	443	(4)
John Winthrop
from his will (Apologia), 1653	445	(2)
Robert Keayne
from New-Englands Tears for Old-Englands Fears, 1640	447	(2)
William Hooke
speech to the General Court, 1645	449	(2)
John Winthrop
from the Simple Cobler of Aggawam in America, 1647	451	(6)
Nathaniel Ward
letter to the Boston church, 1652	457	(1)
Richard Saltonstall
reply to Saltonstall	458	(3)
John Cotton
A Brief Recognition of New-Englands Errand into the Wilderness, 1671	461	(14)
Samuel Danforth
A Brief and True Narrative, 1692	475	(7)
Deodat Lawson
from More Wonders of the Invisible World, 1700	482	(7)
Robert Calef
Science in America: The Seventeenth Century	489	(38)
from A Voyage of Discovery to the Moon, 1638	492	(2)
John Wilkins
from A Key into the Language of America, 1643	494	(4)
Roger Williams
from Two Voyages to New England, 1674	498	(6)
John Josselyn
from Essay for the Recording of Remarkable Providences, 1684	504	(14)
Increase Mather
from Heads for the Natural History of a Country, 1692	518	(3)
Robert Boyle
three selections about smallpox
A Brief Rule, 1678	521	(4)
Thomas Thacher
letter to Hans Sloane, 1722	525	(1)
Cotton Mather
from the Autobiography, Part III, 1788	526	(1)
Benjamin Franklin
Poetry: The Seventeenth Century	527	(70)
from The Faerie Queene, Book II, 1590	531	(1)
Edmund Spenser
verses on Newfoundland, 1628	532	(1)
Robert Hayman
Anonymous ``A West Country Man's Voyage to New England,'' c. 1632	533	(2)
from ``The Church Militant,'' 1633	535	(1)
George Herbert
Anonymous ``A Friendly Invitation to a New Plantation'' [``The Zealous Puritan''], 1638	536	(2)
Anonymous ``New England's Annoyances,'' c. 1642	538	(3)
from The Whole Booke of Psalmes Faithfully Translated into English Metre, 1640	541	(2)
Anonymous ``Ah! Old Must Dye,'' 1645	543	(1)
``Bermudas,'' 1653	544	(1)
Andrew Marvell
``The Author to his Book,'' 1666	545	(3)
George Alsop
``Trafique is Earth's great Atlas,'' 1666	547	(1)
``Prologue,'' 1650	548	(15)
Anne Bradstreet
``The Author to her Book''	550	(1)
``Contemplations''	551	(8)
``Upon the burning of our House''	559	(2)
``Before the Birth of one of her Children''	561	(1)
``To my Dear and loving Husband''	562	(1)
``A Letter to her Husband''	562	(1)
``God's Controversy with New-England,'' 1662	563	(16)
Michael Wigglesworth
``A Song of Emptiness''	576	(3)
from Paradise Lost, 1674	579	(2)
John Milton
Sacramental Meditations, First Series: ``Meditation One''	581	(10)
Edward Taylor
``The Reflexion''	582	(1)
``Meditation Eight''	583	(1)
``Meditation Thirty-Nine''	584	(2)
``Meditation Forty-Nine''	586	(1)
Sacramental Meditations, Second Series: ``Meditation Seventy-Six''	587	(1)
``Upon a Spider Catching a Fly''	588	(2)
``Huswifery''	590	(1)
``The Ebb and Flow''	590	(1)
``Now Reader Read for I am well assur'd,'' 1693	591	(6)
Henry Kelsey
Three: The Eighteenth Century
Religion in the Enlightenment	597	(86)
[Of Being], 1721	601	(4)
Jonathan Edwards
``Personal Narrative,'' c. 1739	605	(11)
Jonathan Edwards
``Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,'' 1741	616	(12)
Jonathan Edwards
``Concerning the Nature of the Will,'' from Freedom of the Will, 1754	628	(3)
Jonathan Edwards
``Of Self-Love,'' from The Nature of True Virtue, 1755	631	(8)
Jonathan Edwards
from the journal, 1745	639	(4)
David Brainerd
A Sermon Preached by Samson Occom, 1772	643	(16)
Samson Occom
from Some Account of the Fore-Part of the Life of Elizabeth Ashbridge, 1774	659	(9)
Elizabeth Ashbridge
two revisions of Job from the Pennsylvania Gazette, 1734	668	(3)
Benjamin Franklin
``The Levee,'' 1779	670	(1)
letter to Ezra Stiles, 1790	671	(2)
Benjamin Franklin
from The Age of Reason, 1794	673	(10)
Thomas Paine
Histories	683	(130)
The Spectator, No. 69, 1711	686	(3)
Joseph Addison
from Robinson Crusoe, 1719	689	(8)
Daniel Defoe
``Robinson Crusoe,'' from The Literary Magazine, 1804	697	(1)
Charles Brockden Brown
from Gulliver's Travels, 1726	698	(1)
Jonathan Swift
from the History of the Dividing Line Betwixt Virginia and North Carolina and the Secret History, 1728	699	(9)
William Byrd II
from Itinerarium, 1744	708	(4)
Dr. Alexander Hamilton
from Journal of the Proceedings Against the Conspirators, at New York in 1741, 1744	712	(4)
Daniel Horsmanden
``A Thought Upon the Past, Present, and Future of British America,'' 1758	716	(2)
Nathaniel Ames II
newspaper advertisements for runaway slaves	718	(1)
from A Narrative of The Most Remarkable Particulars in the Life of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, an African Prince, 1770	719	(6)
Ukawsaw Gronniosaw
James Albert
Autobiography, Part I, 1771	725	(46)
Benjamin Franklin
from Part II, ``The Art of Virtue,'' 1784	768	(3)
from Origin and Progress of the American Rebellion, 1776	771	(7)
Peter Oliver
from Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1776	778	(1)
Edward Gibbon
from The History of America, 1777	779	(2)
William Robertson
The Adventures of Daniel Boon, 1784	781	(11)
John Filson
from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, 1789	792	(6)
Olaudah Equiano
Gustavus Vassa
``The Story of Columbus,'' from The Little Reader's Assistant, 1791	798	(2)
Noah Webster
the legend of Moiship, or Maushop, 1793	800	(1)
William Baylies
from Memoirs of the Notorious Stephen Burroughs, 1798	801	(12)
Stephen Burroughs
The Literature of Politics	813	(88)
The Selling of Joseph, 1700	817	(4)
Samuel Sewall
A Brief and Candid Answer, 1701	821	(4)
John Saffin
Cato's Letters, no. 106, ``Of plantations and colonies,'' 1722	825	(5)
John Trenchard
Thomas Gordon
``Liberty of the Press,'' 1752	830	(6)
William Livingston
from The Administration of the Colonies of America, 1764	836	(6)
Thomas Pownall
two popular broadsides
``To the printur of the Penselvaney Kronical,'' 1772	842	(1)
``The Sentiments of an American Woman,'' 1780	843	(2)
``An Edict by the King of Prussia,'' 1773	845	(4)
Benjamin Franklin
from Taxation no Tyranny, 1775	849	(1)
Samuel Johnson
from Speech of Edmund Burke, Esq. on Moving His Resolutions for Conciliation with the Colonies, 1775	850	(2)
Edmund Burke
letter to John Adams, 1776	852	(2)
Abigail Adams
from The Wealth of Nations, 1776	854	(4)
Adam Smith
A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America, 1776	858	(5)
Thomas Jefferson
Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 19, 1781	863	(2)
Thomas Jefferson
``An Occasional Letter on the Female Sex,'' 1775	865	(3)
Thomas Paine
The American Crisis, #1, 1776	868	(6)
Thomas Paine
``On the Equality of the Sexes,'' 1779	874	(6)
Judith Sargent Murray
from Thoughts Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, 1787	880	(3)
Ottobah Cugoano
John Stuart
from the Virginia ratification debate, 1788	883	(2)
George Mason
James Madison
The Federalist, #10, 1787	885	(6)
James Madison
``Sidi Mehemet Ibrahim on the Slave Trade,'' 1790	891	(2)
Benjamin Franklin
from The Key of Liberty, 1799	893	(8)
William Manning
Science in America: The Eighteenth Century	901	(48)
from The Christian Philosopher, 1721	904	(3)
Cotton Mather
letter on spiders, 1723	907	(5)
Jonathan Edwards
from Essays Upon Field Husbandry in New England, 1760	912	(3)
Jared Eliot
``Of Lightning,'' 1767	915	(4)
Benjamin Franklin
from Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 6, 1781	919	(20)
Thomas Jefferson
from Travels, 1791	939	(10)
William Bartram
Belles Lettres	949	(62)
from the diaries, 1709-21	952	(2)
William Byrd II
The Spectator, No. 11, 1711	954	(4)
Richard Steele
from The History of the Ancient and Honorable Tuesday Club, 1745-56	958	(3)
Dr. Alexander Hamilton
``Speech of Miss Polly Baker,'' 1747	961	(2)
Benjamin Franklin
``Father Abraham's Speech,'' 1758	963	(6)
Benjamin Franklin
``The Ephemera,'' 1778	969	(2)
Benjamin Franklin
Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 4, 1781	971	(2)
Thomas Jefferson
from Letters from an American Farmer, 1782	973	(8)
J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
``Remarks Concerning the Savages of North-America,'' 1783	981	(5)
Benjamin Franklin
``Alphonzo'' from the American Magazine, 1787	986	(1)
two views of the novel question, 1798	987	(2)
Charles Brockden Brown
Thomas Jefferson
from Charlotte Temple, 1794	989	(1)
Susannah Haswell Rowson
from The Coquette, 1797	990	(3)
Hannah Webster Foster
``A Receipt for a Modern Romance,'' 1798	993	(1)
Charles Brockden Brown
``Remarks on Reading,'' 1806	994	(6)
Charles Brockden Brown
``American Literature,'' 1803	1000	(11)
Fisher Ames
Poetry: The Eighteenth Century	1011	(102)
The Sot-Weed Factor, 1708	1014	(18)
Ebenezer Cooke
``A Neighbour's Tears Sprinkled on the Dust of the Amiable Virgin, Mrs. Rebekah Sewall,'' 1710	1032	(2)
Benjamin Tompson
from ``Windsor Forest,'' 1713	1034	(2)
Alexander Pope
Silence Dogood No. 7, 1722	1036	(4)
Benjamin Franklin
three versions of Psalm 137
1725	1040	(1)
Jane Colman Turell
1785	1041	(1)
Lemuel Hopkins
1800	1042	(2)
Timothy Dwight
``Food for Criticks,'' 1730	1044	(4)
Richard Lewis
Anonymous ``The Cameleon Lover,'' 1732	1048	(1)
Anonymous ``The Cameleon's Defence,'' 1732	1048	(1)
``The Poet's Lamentation for the Loss of his Cat, which he used to call his Muse,'' 1733	1049	(1)
Joseph Green
Anonymous ``The Lady's Complaint,'' 1736	1050	(1)
``Bars Fight,'' c. 1746	1051	(1)
Lucy Terry
from ``My Country's Worth,'' 1752	1052	(8)
Charles Hansford
Bishop of Cloyne
George Berkeley
``On the Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning in America,'' 1752	1060	(1)
from The Fleece, 1757	1061	(3)
John Dyer
from The Sugar-Cane, 1764	1064	(6)
James Grainger
``A Translation of the War-Song,'' from Memoirs of Lieutenant Henry Timberlake, 1765	1070	(2)
Henry Timberlake
``The Female Patriots. Addressed to the Daughters of Liberty in America,'' 1768	1072	(1)
Milcah Martha Moore
``Forty Shillings Reward,'' 1769	1073	(3)
Mary Nelson
``To the University of Cambridge, in New England,'' 1767	1076	(5)
Phillis Wheatley
``On Being Brought from Africa to America,'' 1768	1077	(1)
``On Recollection,'' 1771	1078	(2)
``To the Right Honorable William, Earl of Dartmouth,'' 1772	1080	(1)
``Hot Stuff,'' 1759	1081	(2)
Ned Botwood
Anonymous ``On the Snake Depicted at the Head of Some American Newspapers,'' 1774	1083	(1)
``On Reading Some Paragraphs in `The Crisis,' April '77''	1084	(1)
Hannah Griffitts
``Columbia,'' 1777	1085	(2)
Timothy Dwight
Anonymous from Jamaica, a Poem in Three Parts, 1777	1087	(1)
The Rector of St. John's, Nevis ``The Field Negroe; or the Effect of Civilization,'' 1783	1088	(4)
``To Cordelia,'' c. 1784	1092	(2)
Joseph Stansbury
from The Vision of Columbus, 1787	1094	(4)
Joel Barlow
``Elegy on the Destruction of the Trees by the Icicles, Sunday and Monday of February the 17th and 18th, 1788''	1098	(2)
Annis Boudinot Stockton
``On the Mind's Being Engrossed by One Subject,'' 1789	1100	(1)
Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson
``Sonnet to the Full Summer Moon''	1101	(3)
Sarah Wentworth Morton
``The African Chief,'' 1792	1102	(2)
``On the Emigration to America and Peopling the Western Country,'' 1784	1104	(9)
Philip Freneau
``The Wild Honey Suckle,'' 1786	1106	(1)
``The Indian Burying Ground,'' 1788	1107	(1)
``Epistle to a Student of Dead Languages,'' 1795	1108	(1)
``The Drunkard's Apology,'' 1795	1109	(1)
``The Indian Convert,'' 1797	1109	(1)
``To the Americans of the United States,'' 1797	1110	(3)
Index	1113