An overview of literature of the 17, 18 and 19 century

17º CENTURY GOD - WILLIAM BRADFORD and JOHN WINTHROP address themselves to questions of history. They were puritans and believed that all events even the casual ones, were a part of God´s plan. They had a historic mission, they were chosen by God to create a community. The first plantation was governed by William Bradford. They first tried to have the community in Holland, but failing went to America because they did not agree with the Catholic Church, they wanted to make the church pure again after the dissolution. During the years, the idea that they would have a destiny grew in scope. Even after the dissolution of the first plantation (Plymouth colony) this idea continued in the Americans mind, what they called Manifest Destiny (they were chosen to lead the World) their discourse was that the land was unpeopled and natives were not human, which characterizes a colonizer speech. The American colonization has two foundations 1- belief in God that they were special people and that they were chosen (Manifest Destiny) (power), 2- extermination of the natives (death). For Bradford everything was spiritually, there were no social or political justifications. John Winthrop was responsible for Bay colony. Winthrop was Calvinist and believed that mankind was corrupted and he had no faith in democracy. He was convinced that America was a land where God had his angels and appointed them to maintain law there. Puritans were against Quakers because they wanted to live in peace with the natives and peaceful people; they did not like money and led a simple life. Roger William was against John´s ideals and was persecuted. The puritan principles were hard work, independence and moral strength.
ROGER WILLIAMS was also a puritan and wanted separation from the Anglican Church. His ideas differ from the above men, due to the fact that he believed natives were more polite, were sons of God. He said that religion conformity was killing men soul; he wanted to promote liberty and democracy to separate the church from the state.
18º CENTURY- SCIENCE. Known for the domination of Enlightenment. It was the beginning of modern science, what weakened man´s faith in miracles, holy books and in the divinity of priests. THOMAS JEFFERSON was the main actor of the declaration of independence. He was a deist, a religious movement among the upper classes who believed that God was the first cause and interfered in the natural world allowing it to run according to the laws of nature, but that God did not interfere in human affairs with miracles and revelations. Optimism, deism and enlightenment argued that man was naturally good and his natural emotions were divine. During his life, he worked to establish religious freedom and to end slavery and to assert the idea of men´s inalienable (inherent) rights. He was an outspoken abolitionist, but owned many slaves during his lifetime. All men are created equal; they have unalienable rights to freedom, liberty and pursuit of happiness. He said that all men are equal but as he did not call natives or Negros as humans, they did not have these rights.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN was credited as being the founder of the American values of character, self-reliance, hard work, education, community and spirit. He exemplifies the American dream of the poor boy who makes good. He helped to create the American Republic, and believed that God helps those who help themselves. He believed in the possibilities of human progress and comforts of material success. He also talks about the politeness of the 'savages'.
JAMES COOPER was the first American novelist and his most famous work is the last of the Mohicans. Romanticized the image of the wise and noble red man. His literature would praise the land.
PURITANS – CHOSEN ONES, PREDESTINATION, SUPERIORITY, MANIFEST DESTINY.
19º CENTURY LITERATURE ROMATISCISM. There were 2 trends, 1 represented by the transcendentalists EMERSON and THOUREAU who believed that men should transcend the material and think in the spiritual reality; Transcendentalists argued that knowledge did not come exclusively through the intellect, but also through the senses, intuition, and sudden insight. a self that is independent, do not depend on government, and the 2 represented by POE, HAWTHORNE and MELVILLE who believed that men are fragile, corrupt, powerless, they talk about the limitations of men.
EMERSON believed that slavery was fundamental, was against the democratization of the US, was individualist and materialist. He was also Calvinist and gave emphasis to the individual, who can know the truth, the spiritual and the divine light immediately imparted to the soul. He was very important for the concept that American have about themselves as god-like creatures. He also believed that we talk to God without intermediaries (Calvinists). Men are as powerful as God, can do anything. He is very contradictory and naïve. Slaves were not human for him. Self-imperial
His works emphasized spontaneous and vivid expression of emotion rather than logic and analysis. In his essays “Nature” and “Self-Reliance,” claimed that all people were capable of seeing the truth if they relied on their inner selves and trusted their hearts.
He said that intuition was a guide of universal truth, and was against the predestination. Self-Reliance contains the most thorough statement of one of Emerson's repeating themes, the need for each individual to avoid conformity and false consistency (make us not trust ourselves), and follow his or her own instincts and ideas, Men needed to trust themselves. Values the mind of the individual. In the State men do not posses himself, has conformity.
The American scholar – The scholar's education consists of three pursuits:
1. Nature to investigate, study and to understand nature, which includes the scholar's own mind and person.
2. Books to study the "mind of the past": to read literature, to observe art, to study institutions, because books are the best type of influence of the past.
3. Practical men to take action and to interact with the world; not to become the recluse thinker commenting from afar.
To achieve this higher state of mind, the modern American scholar must reject old ideas and think for him or herself, to become "Man Thinking" rather than "a mere thinker, or still worse, the parrot of other men's thinking", "the victim of society", "the sluggard intellect of this continent".
He did not care with what people thought and had no social responsibility.
THOREAU recounted his two years spent living in a cabin in the woods away from civilization and materialism. He advocated living a simple life according to one’s conscience, not according to society’s repressive codes. He was also a transcendentalist and Emerson´s follower. He believed that as a individual he could do without society, the individual was powerful. The most important theme in Thoreau is the simplification of life (DIY), the idea of self-made man. He was in favor of simplicity and this ideology says that you can do things, simplify your life using few things. He also says that we should stay closer to nature; he preaches a return to nature.
Civil disobedience asserts the need to prioritize one's conscience over the dictates of laws. It criticizes American social institutions, most prominently slavery. Government rarely proves itself useful and that it derives its power from the majority because they are the strongest group, not because they hold the most legitimate viewpoint. He contends that people's first obligation is to do what they believe is right and not to follow the law dictated by the majority. When a government is unjust, people should refuse to follow the law and distance themselves from the government in general. A person is not obligated to devote his life to eliminating evils from the world, but he is obligated not to participate in such evils. This includes not being a member of an unjust institution (like the government). Thoreau further argues that the United States fits his criteria for an unjust government, given its support of slavery and its practice of aggressive war. Thoreau refused to pay taxes and spent a night in jail. But, more generally, he ideologically dissociated himself from the government, and refusing to participate in his institutions. According to Thoreau, this form of protest was preferable to advocating for reform from within government; he asserts that one cannot see government for what it is when one is working within it. State is unjust, and those who agree with society become confederate of the state.
POE writes Gothic literature, a genre that rose with Romanticism. explores the dark side of human experience—death, alienation, nightmares, ghosts, and haunted landscapes. American Gothic literature dramatizes a culture plagued by poverty and slavery through characters afflicted with various forms of insanity and melancholy.
The philosophy of composition elucidates a theory about how good writers write when they write well. He concludes that length, "unity of effect" and a logical method are important considerations for good writing.
Length Poe believed that all literary works should be short. "There is," he writes, "a distinct limit... to all works of literary art - the limit of a single sitting." He especially emphasized this "rule" with regards to poetry, but also noted that the short story is superior to the novel for this reason.
Method Poe dismissed the notion of artistic intuition and argued that writing is methodical and analytical, not spontaneous. He writes that no other author has yet admitted this because most writers would "positively shudder at letting the public take a peep behind the scenes... at the fully matured fancies discarded in despair... at the cautious selections and rejections.
"Unity of effect" The essay states Poe's conviction that a work of fiction should be written only after the author has decided how it is to end and which emotional response, or "effect," he wishes to create, commonly known as the "unity of effect." Once this effect has been determined, the writer should decide all other matters pertaining to the composition of the work, including tone, theme, setting, characters, conflict, and plot. The most important thing when writing is the effect you want to cause in the author.


wikipedia, sparknotes and some books were used.