18th century American literature

B. Major figures
1. Anne Bradstreet Most of her poems are personal in subject, often meditating on domestic topics from a religious point of view. 2. Thomas Paine Some people wrote for civil and religious freedom a. A fighter for the rights of man. b. The major works: “Common Sense”(the greatest of the Revolutionary pamphlets)/ “American Crisis”(these pamphlets made an important contribution to the American revolutionary cause and influenced the young nation’s political and philosophical ideology)/The Rights of Man/ “The Age of Reason”
Chapter Two (3) Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
Man of Action
Chapter Two (3) Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
III. Benjamin Franklin A. Status: one of the greatest founding fathers of the American Nation a rare genius in human history Jack of all trades: essayist, autobiographical writer, printer, scientist, postmaster, almanac maker, orator, statesman, philosopher, political economist, ambassador, parlor man, almost everything
A. Major genres of literature
Literature of the New England Settlements is mainly a literary expression of the Puritan idealism. It is based on the Biblical myth of the Garden of Eden. Generally speaking, there are following types of writing that were produced in the colonial settlements: histories, travel accounts, biographies, diaries, letters, autobiographies, sermons, and poems. Personal literature in its various forms occupies a major portion. Sermon was a very popular form of literature in the 17th century America.
The two basic patterns of thought dominating the 18th century American
1. Deism
Toward the latter part of the 17th century, a complete new view of the universe came into being. Under the influence of Newton’s laws of motion and the idea of universal gravitation, in the minds of thinking people, the universe became sth. mechanical, like a clock, subject to certain physical and mechanical laws. This gave rise to a whole set of new ideas and philosophies, predominant among which is deism. The Deists hold that God is indeed the creator of universe, “the maker of the clock”, but He has left it to operate according to natural law. Thus the best way to worship God is to study his handiwork, namely, the natural world and the human world, to do good things to mankind. The new concept of the universe was radically different from the hitherto domineering Christian position of original sin and predestination. With Franklin as its spokesman, the 18th century America experienced an age of enlightenment, of reason, and order like England and Europe.
Chapter Two (3)
Benjamin Franklin
(1706-1790)
B. Life and Career (Public Career)
Colonial America源自“The first American literature was neither American nor really literature. It was not American because it was the work mainly of immigrants from England. It was not literature as we know it—in the form of poetry, essay, or fiction—but rather an interesting mixture of travel accounts and religious writings.”
The 18th Century American Literature
I. Background A. The Enlightenment Movement The Enlightenment Movement was a progressive intellectual movement that swept through the whole western Europe at the time. The movement was a furtherance of the Renaissance of the 15th and 16th centuries. Its purpose was to enlighten the whole world with the light of modern philosophical and artistic ideas. The enlighteners celebrated reason or rationality, equality and science. They held that rationality to reason should be the only, the final cause of any human thought and activities. They called for a reference to order, reason and rules. They believed that when reason served as the yardstick for the measurement of all human activities and relations. So the 18th century is called “The Age of Reason”. These Enlightenment concepts also produced great influence on American literature.
Chapter Two (3) Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) B. Life and Career (Early Years):
1.Calvinist background in Boston 2.Candle-maker’s family – “poor and obscure” 3.Little formal education Self-taught and self-made 4.Apprentice to his half brother – composer His maiden writing in the pseudo-name Silence Dogood A runaway boy from Boston to Philadelphia to make his own fortune
2.Calvinist beliefs and tenets
Calvinists believe that man was, since the Fall, basically evil and enslaved by his sense of sin, and that God was all, and would in His mercy and love work for man’s salvation, but as for men, all he could do was to worship the Almighty and hope.
Chapter Two (3) Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) B. Life and Career (A Story of Success)
5.A successful printer who retired at 42 6. He founded the Pennsylvania Hospital, the University of Pennsylvania, the American Philosophical Society, a subscription library, volunteer fire departments 7. He invented a musical instrument called glass harmonica, the effective street lighting, the Franklin stove, bifocal glasses, efficient heating system, and lightning-rod for which he was praised as “the new Prometheus who had stolen fire from heaven by Immanuel Kant”