ASSIGNED SEATS TODAY
DUE TODAY: vocabulary 3 anything after class is 10 points off
In class; finishing up (I hope) the sonnet presentations
New material
FOR WEDNESDAY: We are beginning a unit on colonial literature prior to 1750. Please read the background information on the handout carefully. We'll have a quiz on Wednesday. (copy below)
Tomorrow, Tuesday, we'll review the Hamlet essays.
For Thursday: read John Smith's Generall Historie (copy below) Make sure read actively, that is to underline and define any words which you are unsure of. Note in the margins any questions or comments that come to mind as you read.
(Wednesday's reading)The New Land to 1750
Let England know our willingnesse,
For that our worke is good:
Wee hope to plant a nation,
Where none before hath stood
Thomas Dale
Governor of the Jamestown Colony
More than a century after European explorers discovered North America, there were no permanent settlements in the New World north of St. Augustine, Florida. By 1607, however, a small group of English settlers was struggling to survive on a marshy island in the James River in the present state of Virginia. In 1611, Thomas Dale, governor of the colony, wrote a report to the king expressing the colonist’s determination to succeed. Despite disease and starvation, Jamestown did survive.
The first settlers were entranced by the presence and, to them, the strangeness of the native inhabitants. They did not at first realize that these earlier Americans, like Europeans, had cultural values and literary traditions of their own. The literature was entirely oral, for the tribes of North America had not yet developed writing systems. This extensive oral tradition, along with the first written works of the colonists forms the beginning of the American literary heritage.
The Historical Setting:
When Christopher Columbus reached North America in 1492, the continent was already populated, though sparsely, by several hundred Native American tribes. Europeans did not encounter these tribes all at once. Explorers from different nations came into contact with them at different times. As we now know, these widely dispersed tribes of Native Americans differed greatly from one another in language, government, social organization, customs, housing and methods of survival.
What we do know is that the Native Americans usually, but by no means always, greeted the earliest Europeans as friends. They instructed the newcomers in New World agriculture and woodcraft, introduced them to maize, beans, squash, maple sugar, snow shoes, toboggans and birch bark canoes.
A small group of Europeans sailed from England on the Mayflower in 1620. The passengers were religious reformers, who were critical of the Church of England. Having given up of or “purifying” the church from within, they chose instead to withdraw from the church. This action earned them the name Separatists. We know them as Pilgrims. They established a settlement at what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts. Eventually, it was engulfed by the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the much larger settlement to the north.
Religion affected every aspect of Puritan life, although the Puritans were not always as stern and otherworldly as they are sometimes pictures. Their writings occasionally reveal a sense of humor, and the hardships of daily life forced them to be practical. In one sense, the Puritans were radical, since they demanded fundamental changes in the Church of England. In another sense, however, they were conservative. They preached a plain, unadorned Christianity that contrasted sharply with the cathedrals, vestments, ceremony and hierarchy of the Church of England.
What exactly did the puritans believe? Their beliefs were far from simple, but they agreed that human beings exist for the glory of God and the Bible is the sole expression of God’s will. They believed in predestination--John Calvin’s doctrine that God has already decided who will achieve salvation and who will not. The elect, or saints, who are to be saved, cannot take election for granted, however. Because of that, all devout Puritans searched their soul with great rigor and frequency for signs of grace. The Puritans believed in original sin and felt that they could accomplish good only through continual hard work and self-discipliner. When people speak of the “Puritan ethic,” that is what they mean.
It was an oddly assorted group that established the foundations of American literature: the Native Americans with their oral traditions, the Puritans with their preoccupation with sin and salvation and the Southern planters with their busy social lives. Indeed, much of the literature that the colonists read was not produced in the colonies. It came from England. Yet by 1750 there were the clear beginnings of a native literature that would one day be honored throughout the English-speaking world.
Note: The Puritans in general had a theory of literary style. They believed in the plain style of writing, one in which clear statement is the highest goal. An ornate or clever style would be a sign of vanity and, as such, would not be in accordance with God’s will.
The important literature of the pre-Revolutionary South can be summed up in one name-William Byrd. Byrd lived at Westover, a magnificent plantation on the James River bequeathed to him by his wealthy father. Commissioned in 1738 to survey the boundary line between Virginia and North Carolina, he kept a journal of his experiences. That journal, never intended for publication, was found among his papers after his death. Published nearly a century later as The History of the Dividing Line, it was immediately recognized as a minor humorous masterpiece.
(Thursday's reading)
Excerpt from Captain John Smith, The Generall Historie of Virginia, New England & the Summer Isles (1624)
Then they led him to the Youthtanunds, the Mattapanients, the Payankatanks, the Nantaughtacunds, and Onawmanients upon the rivers of Rappahannock, and Potomac, over all those rivers, and back again by divers other several nations, to the King's habitation at Pamaunkee, where they entertained him with most strange and fearful conjurations:
As if near led to hell,Amongst the devils to dwell.
Not long after, early in a morning a great fire was made in a longhouse, and a mat spread on the one side, as on the other; on the one they caused him to sit, and all the guard went out of the house, and presently came skipping in a great grim fellow, all painted over with coal, mingled with oil: and many snakes' and weasels' skins stuffed with moss, and all their tails tied together, so as they met on the crown of his head in a tassel; and round about the tassel was as a coronet of feathers, the skins hanging round about his head, back, and shoulders, and in a manner covered his face; with a hellish voice, and a rattle in his hand. With most strange gestures and passions he began his invocation, and environed the fire with a circle of meal, which done, three more such like devils came rushing in with the like antique tricks, painted half black, half red, but all their eyes were painted white, and some red strokes like mutchatos along their cheeks. Round about him those fiends danced a pretty while, and then came in three more as ugly as the rest, with red eyes, and white strokes over their black faces. At last they all sat down right against him, three of them on the one hand of the chief priest, and three on the other. Then all with their rattles began a song, which ended the chief priest laid down five wheat corns; then straining his arms and hands with such violence that he sweat, and his veins swelled, he began a short oration. At the conclusion they all gave a short groan, and they laid down three grains more. After that, began their song again, and then another oration, ever laying down so many corns as before, till they had twice encircled the fire; that done, they took a bunch of little sticks prepared for that purpose, continuing still their devotion, and at the end of every song and oration they laid down a stick betwixt the divisions of corn. Till night, neither he nor they did either eat or drink; and then they feasted merrily, with the best provisions they could make. Three days they used this ceremony; the meaning whereof, they told him, was to know if he intended them well or no. The circle of meal signified their country, the circles of corn the bounds of the sea, and the sticks his country. They imagined the world to be flat and round, like a trencher, and they in the midst.
After this they brought him a bag of gunpowder, which they carefully preserved till the next spring, to plant as they did their corn; because they would be acquainted with the nature of that seed.
Opitchapam, the King's brother, invited him to his house, where, with as many platters of bread, fowl, and wild beasts as did environ him, he bid him welcome; but not any of them would eat a bit with him but put up all the remainder in baskets.
At his return to Opechancanoughs, all the King's women, and their children, flocked about him for their parts, as a due by custom, to be merry with such fragments.
But his waking mind in hideous dreams did oft see wondrous shapes,Of bodies strange, and huge in growth, and of stupendous makes.
At last they brought him to Meronocomoco, where was Powhatan, their emperor. Here more than two hundred of those grim courtiers stood wondering at him, as he had been a monster till Powhatan and his train had put themselves in their greatest braveries. Before a fire upon a seat like a bedstead, he sat covered with a great robe made of rarowcun skins, and all the tails hanging by. On either hand did sit a young wench of 16 or 18 years, and along on each side the house, two rows of men, and behind them as many women, with all their heads and shoulders painted red, many of their heads bedecked with the white down of birds, but every one with something, and a great chain of white beads about their necks.
At his entrance before the King, all the people gave a great shout. The Queen of Appamatuck was appointed to bring him water to wash his hands and another brought him a bunch of feathers, instead of a towel, to dry them. Having feasted him after their best barbarous manner they could, a long consultation was held; but the conclusion was, two great stones were brought before Powhatan: then as many as could laid hands on him, dragged him to them, and thereon laid his head, and being ready with their clubs, to beat out his brains, Pocahontas, the King's dearest daughter, when no entreaty could prevail, got his head in her arms, and laid her own upon his to save him from death, whereat the Emperor was contented he should live to make him hatchets, and her bells, beads, and copper, for they thought him as well of all occupations as themselves. For the King himself will make his own robes, shoes, bows, arrows, pots; plant, hunt, or do any thing so well as the rest.
They say he bore a pleasant show,But sure his heart was sad.For who can pleasant be, and rest,That lives in fear and dread:And having life suspected, dothIt still suspected lead.
Two days after, Powhatan, having disguised himself in the most fearfulest manner he could, caused Captain Smith to be brought forth to a great house in the woods, and there upon a mat by the fire to be left alone. Not long after, from behind a mat that divided the house, was made the most dolefulest noise he ever heard; then Powhatan, more like a devil than a man, with some two hundred more as black as himself, came unto him and told him now they were friends, and presently he should go to Jamestown to send him two great guns, and a grindstone, for which he would give him the country of Capahowosick, and for ever esteem him as his son Nantaquoud.
So to Jamestown with 12 guides Powhatan sent him. That night they quartered in the woods, he still expecting (as he had done all this long time of his imprisonment) every hour to be put to one death or other, for all their feasting. But almighty God (by his divine providence) had mollified the hearts of those stern barbarians with compassion. The next morning betimes they came to the fort, where Smith, having used the savages with what kindness he could, he showed Rawhunt, Powhatan's trusty servant, two demiculverings and a millstone to carry Powhatan. They found them somewhat too heavy, but when they did see him discharge them, being loaded with stones, among the boughs of a great tree loaded with icicles, the ice and branches came so tumbling down that the poor savages ran away half dead with fear. But at last we regained some conference with them, and gave them such toys; and sent to Powhatan, his women, and children such presents, as gave them in general full content.
Now in Jamestown they were all in combustion, the strongest preparing once more to run away with the pinnace; which with the hazard of his life, with Sakre falcon and musket shot, Smith forced now the third time to stay or sink.
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