Jamestown, Virginia : 1607 C. J. Smith; Plymouth Plantation: 1620 W.Bradford Massachusetts Bay Colony: 1630 J. Winthrop

5 Calvin’s Points: Total depravity-man is damned, Unconditional election=Predestination, Limited Atonement-Christ suffered not for all people, Irresistible Grace, Perseverance of Saints

Congregationalists: individual relation with God, free interpretation of the Bible

Origins of the Protestantism: 1517 – M. Luther began the Reformation, attempts at reforming the Catholic Church, New churches appeared, The Church of England estabilished in 1534

Protestantism: Salvation –grace of God, Predestination, Priesthood – rejected, Individual relations with God, Only two sacraments – Baptism, Eucharist

Cosmopolitan Spirit: influences from Europe (Romanticism, Modernism) – Edgar Alan Poe, Henry James

The Frontier: 1. Moring line of settlement 3. Meeting point between savagery and civilization 4. Starting point of democracy 5. Affirmation of life & social equality

The Enlightenment : 1. Personal, social progress 2. Man shaped by environment 4. Focus on man, his development, society.

Early American Fiction: 1. Art from Europe. 2. London -Primary Cultural Capital 3. Public subject matter 4. Practical everyday problems 5. Puritan mentality 6. American dependence on British

Transcendentalism – link with Romanticism : intuition and imagination, supernatural powers, semi-religious towards nature, influenced by deism. The Transcendental club.

The impact of the Civil War: 1.opened the South to New England. 2. The South invaded and occupied for a number of years 3. Great emigration 4. Literature: Negro folklore 5. Economic problems 6. Great technological progress 7. America expanded westwards 8. New England’s influence was spread, education

COLONIAL LUTERATURE: W. BRADFORD, S. SEWALL,

J.EDWARDS (Sinners…)

PURITAN POETRY: A. BRADSTREET (To my…, Upon the burning…) E.TAYLOR (Upon a spider…, Huswifery)

REVOLUTIONARY WRITING (AGE OF REASON)

B.FRANKLIN (Autobiography, Poor Richard’s…-people’s idleness, folly and pride) T. JEFFERSON (The Declaration… equality, government, pursuit of happiness, Notes on the stage of Virginia - slavery) T. PAINE ( Common Sense – American independence, The Rights of Man- criticism of monarchy, American Crisis-military situation, There are times…, The Age of Reason-attack on Christianity) A. HAMILTON (father of America, Secretary of Treasury) P. FRENEAU (Pre-Romantic poetry, nature, politics, Indians, sea, The Wild Honeysuckle)

ROMANTIC PERIOD W. IRVING ( Rip Van Winkle – Rip, Dame Van Winkle, Henrich Hudson, Peter Vanderdonk, Nicholas Vedder, Dieddrich Van Brummel, Judith Gardening; The Legend… - Ichabod Crane, Katrine Van Tassel, Brom Bones, Baltus Van Tassel) JAMES FENIMORE COOPER (American frontier; Precaution, Spy-Harvet Birch, Pilot, The Letherstocking Tales – Natty Bumpo) WILLIAM CULLER BRYANT (The Prairies) E. A. POE (The fall of the house of Usher – Roderick Usher, Medeline, house symbolizes human body, fear, doom, quilt, terror and horror, European Gothic; The Raven – conflict between desire to remember and to forget; Eldorado, The Cask of Amontillado – Motresor, Fortunato, Luchesi) R. W. EMERSON (Nature – harmony between human and nature; The American Scholar – Americans shouldn’t imitate Europeans, everyone can be scholar; Self Reliance – need for individual, truth is within oneself) M. FULLER – feminist; HENRY DAVID THOREAU (Walden – how to live deliberately, renewing lives, importance of present moment; Life Without Principle) N. HAWTHORNE (Young Goodman Brown, Faith, Old Man, Goody Cloyse, The Minister, Deacon Gookin; pink ribbon, mankind is evil; The Minister’s Black Veil – Mr. Hooper, Elizabeth, Mr. Clark; The Scarlet Letter: Hester, Arthur Dimesdale, Roger Chilingworth, Pearl, Mistress Hibbins, Bellingham; unpardonable sin; The House of Seven Gambles, The Marble Faun, Short Story Collection) HERMAN MELVILLE (Moby-Dick: sea, battle of faith and intellect, symbolism, Ishmael, Captain Ahab, White Whale; Piere, The Confidence Man, Billy Budd) HARRIET BEECHER STOWE (Uncle’s Tom Cabin – slavery, Uncle Tom, Angle St Clare, Yankee, Simon Legree)POETRY WALT WHITMAN (Leaves of Grass), E. DICKSON