One of his major works was a long poem written in three cantos about the horrors he experienced while being held prisoner on a British prison. ship. There we see a much edgier, angry Freneau who is willing to write about real life in real terms:
Here, generous Britain, generous, as you say,
To my parch'd tongue one cooling drop convey;
Hell has no mischief like a thirsty throat,
Nor one tormentor like your David Sproat."
All of these influences eventually came together, resulting later in the 19th century in Transcendentalism. This time when American writers reached to the past, they combined the best higher ideals of both the Puritans and the Enlightenment, and the love of nature from neoclassicism, and produced bodies of work that transcended all its previous influences. The roots for the literary movement that would bring us "Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry...
Because of America's unique, short history, when America found its literary voice, it was unlike any that had been heard before.
Bibliography
Boynton, Percy H., ed.:"On a Honey Bee," by Philip Freneau, in American Poetry. New York: Scribner's Sons, 1918. Accessed via the Internet 12/23/04. http://www.mith2.umd.edu:8080/eada/html/display.jsp?docs=freneau_honeybee.xml&action=show.Site copyright 2002.
Cesarini, J. Patrick. 2003. "The ambivalent uses of Roger Williams's: A Key Into the Language of America." Early American Literature, Sept. 22.
Lossing, Benson J. 1877. "Jersey, the British Prison Ship," in Our Country. A Household History for All Readers, Vol. 2. Accessed via the Internet 12/23/04. http://www.publicbookshelf.com/public_html/Our_Country_vol_2/jerseybri_jc.html
VanSpanckeren, Karen. 1998. "Outline of American Literature." U.S. Department of State, November. Accessed via the Internet 12/23/04. http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/oal/oaltoc.htm
American Literature discussion topics: 1. Discuss Sarah Orne Jewett Charles Chesnutt contributed local color fiction nineteenth century stories respective regions (Jewett writing New England Chesnutt South). Sarah Orne Jewett and Charles Chesnutt played essential roles in promoting concepts and thinking in general in the regions of New England, and, respectively, the American South. The fact that these people's writings provide suggestive sketches of village life in the U.S. makes it possible
American Literature and the Great Depression When one considers how the Great Depression affected American Literature, John Steinbeck tends to stick out, if only because his fiction generally discusses the same themes and anxieties that has come to define the Great Depression in the public consciousness. Indeed, Steinbeck's Grapes Of Wrath, a realist novel which follows the Joad family as they travel west after they losing their farm to the Dust
The stories are moving for the dominant cultural reader as well as for future generations of subjugated immigrant groups. This is not to say that all subjugated groups are immigrants, as the experience of the indigenous Native American population must also be seen as expressive of the American literary experience. The transition from an oral tradition to a written tradition has proved a struggle which was shadowed in extreme only
Writers such as Poe, Herman Melville, and Nathaniel Hawthorne became known as the key figures in the Dark Romantic sub-genre that emerged out of Transcendentalism. American literature also found its voice through poetry during the 19th century, particularly in the works of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson. The two poets produced remarkably dissimilar bodies of work. Whitman rose to prominence during the American Civil War with his free verse extolling
Ginsberg in fact spent some time in a psychiatric ward and his poem Howel makes the implication that his and his contemporaries madness is caused by the madness of society which, due to its infatuation with technology, has become a demon far worse than any found in humanity's collective mythology. Jung argues that in modern society, mythology has not actually disappeared, it has just taken a less noticeable form in
Although his wife was really upset, and very mean to him, his patience with her and about the severity of the situation, makes him a model person. Not many people actually have this attribute, and although many would wish to attain it, very few do. This adds on to the mythic American persona. Rip Van Winkle was liked by everyone. His sweet, nice characteristics made him a likeable person,
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