Smyrna times., 1894-02-07
The Beginning ofAmerlcan Literature.

The Beginning ofAmerlcan Literature.
! prof. Yocum has prepared a series of articles
on American literature which will be supple
| mented by numerous selections from the works
| of standard writers. 1t is believed that such a
course of reading, while primarily designed for
the pupils of the public schools may prove IN.
teresting to the general public)
What is literature ? A well known
writer of textbooks has defined it as
Thought expressed in writing" In
the same happy manner he might have
referred to sculpture as a stone-cutter
or painting as thought expressed in
The Best Mixed Paints" By def
milton so comprehensive, the Bible and
the Dime Novel;, Paradise LOST
and Mother Goose" are all huddled
together in the same boat. Mr.. Web
ster defines literature as "The class of
writings distinguished for beauty of
style or expression, as poetry, ESSAYS
or history in distinction from scientific
treatises and works which contain posi-
tive knowledge" A nations literature
then, is what the French have so well
called its Bellies Lettres", its "beauti-
ful in expression and in thought-but
writers, thought and expression must
be the nations own.
1t has long been the fashion for critics
to deny that there is any such thing as
American Literature. They claim that
among the Pilgrims that landed at Piv-
mouth Rock was Bellies Lettres, in a
sober dOublet and steeple-crowned hat.
seeking that freedom of written speech
for which Milton had plead in vain.
Americas literature is but English
literature, they say,-"The people Of
United States have had to act their
Iliad, they have not had time to sing
it,"
1t is high time that such misstate-
ments were going out of style. To be
sure English thought flows through
American poetry and prose. American
literature to-day is no more English
literature than brother Jonathan is
John Bull.
To be sure American literature had
It's beginning in Puritan theology, lust
as the American people had theirs in
Puritan men, but mixed blood and
local conditions have developed the
same changes in the literature as in the
the race. Indeed the writings of Cot
ton Mather and Jonathan Edwards are
no more Americans than are those of
Calvin or Wycliffe.
The first book written and published
IN America was the Bay Psalm Book
(l639l religious doggerel mainly com
posed by New England divines with
the exception of the long narrative of
John Smith in which he has recorded
his adventures in Virginia; more how
ever for the entertainment of his friends
beyond the sea. than to preserve his
toric facts; the remaining works of the
period were theological in their ma
ture. Few Indeed but the clergy had
time to WELD the pen. "The life of
the early colOuists left no leisure for
refinement. They had to conquer ma
ture before admiring it, to feed and
clothe before analyzing themselves.
While Dryden. Pope and Addison were
polishing stanzas and adding grace to
English prose, they were telling trees.
navigating rivers and fertilizing val
leys."
The principal writers of the seven
teenth century were Increase aud Cot
ton Mather who together published
almost four hundred treatises mostly
of a theological nature. The SUPER
stition of the period is shown in the
fact that so learned man as the latter
should have published Memorable
Providence Relating to Witchcraft,''
and three years later have joined in
the horrible persecution during the
course of which twenty human beings
were hanged for riding through the air
on broom sticks. The stern old
divine shows more common sense in
his advice to little Benjamin Franklin
who had bumped his head on one of
the rafters of the Mather at bic "You
are young and have the world before
you; stoop as you go through it and
you will miss many hard hump"
With the exception of John Eliot's
Indian Bible" Governor Winthrop's
History OF New England"and Rodger
Williams Bloody Tenent of Persecu-
tions, Hireling Ministry None of
Christ's", the remaining publications
are unworthy of mention.
The following poetical quotation well
represents the few doggerels that Puri-
tanism produced:
'The place where we live is a wilderness wood
"here grass Is much wanting that fruitful and
good,
- --N--- ---~Ns W "eAtAAb W llA up our dish,
We have carrots and pumpkins and turnips and
fish
We have pumpkins at morning and pumpkins at
noon,
lift were not for pumpkins we should be un.
DONE"
A brief reference to Jonathan Ed
wards is all that is necessary to COM
plete the story of the only English
literature that has ever been called
American. An idea of the style ofthis
noted metaphysician may be gathered
from the title of one of his works: "a
careful and Strict Inquiry into the
modern notion of that Freedom of
Will Which is Supposed to be Essential
to Moral Agency, Virtue and Vice. Re.
ward and Punishment, Praise and
Blame.n
Are the dark waters of this well of
pedantry and superstition the source of
American literature? Can we not bet
ter trace its beginnings in many a
foreign land whose bravest and brain
lest sons have been among the pro-
genitors of the American people,
people in whose civilization Puritanism
has hardly left q trace.