THE PREFACE It is now an accepted doctrine among teachers of English that the study of the history of literature should take a comparatively small part of the high-school student's time and that the first-hand study of the literature itself should receive his largest effort. But it is also generally recognized that in order to approach intelligently the actual literature of any period or country and to gain a clear grasp of its progress as a whole, the young student will need at least a brief handbook to set before him in organized form the essential facts of the literary history of that period or country. American literature, particularly in the two earlier periods, is but an interpretation of the political, social, and industrial life of the growing nation. In a brief survey of these early periods it will only be necessary to refresh the high-school student's memory regarding the historical backgrounds and to list for him the chief writers of the peculiar kinds of literature produced during these periods, giving an occasional quotation from the more important literary monuments in order to satisfy the student's antiquarian interest and intellectual curiosity as to the sorts of material which our ancestors produced in these periods. In the later period, beginning about 1800 and extending down to the present, the student will need a somewhat fuller treatment of the artistic or permanent literature, mainly because the aim of the teacher here will be to lead the student to read more deeply in this literature, both because of its nearness to him and because of its greater artistic importance. The plan of this History of American Literature, then, is to treat briefly the Colonial and Revolutionary periods, giving the essential facts of the literary history, together with a few illustrative quotations from such of the authors as may be of most interest to young students; and to treat in more detail the important literary movements and figures of the nineteenth century, bringing the record down through practically the first two decades of the twentieth century. In this later literature the student will find much that will appeal directly to his interests, and here, too, the teacher will naturally find the bulk of the literary material to be placed before the high-school students for closer study and analysis. Hence it will be well to organize into more definitive groups and schools the important writers of this later period, and to give a fuller treatment of both the major and the minor authors whose works undoubtedly go to make up the great body of our artistic and creative literature. No course in American literature can be satisfactorily based on the history alone. As has already been said, the selections themselves should be placed in the hands of the student if he is to gain any permanent knowledge of the development of our national literature. In order to meet the widespread demand for a single volume containing the choicest American classics edited in such a form as to make them easily comprehensible to young students, I have prepared a companion volume to this History of American Literature, under the title of Selections from American Literature. The two volumes, together with such additional outside reading as may be assigned, will make a fairly complete elementary course in American literature. I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to three of my colleagues in the English department of the University of Texas-namely, Professors Killis Campbell and Robert Adger Law and Dr. Earl L. Bradsher, each of whom has saved me from numerous pitfalls by reading the material in manuscript or in proof sheets. I am also deeply indebted to Professor Percy H. Boynton, of the University of Chicago, who read the manuscript in its initial form and made many valuable suggestions for its improvement. My thanks are also due to Edgar Lee Masters, Carl Sandburg, and Amy Lowell for permission to use complete short poems from their copyrighted books; to the Houghton Mifflin Company for permission to use the poem "Life" from the works of Edward Rowland Sill; to Edwin Markham for permission to reprint entire his latest revision of "The Man with the Hoe"; and to Julian Richard Hovey for permission to quote two stanzas from "The Call of the Bugles" by Richard Hovey. Austin, Texas, L. W. PAYNE, JR. HISTORY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE I. THE COLONIAL PERIOD, 1607-1765 GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS Historical Background. The colonial period of our literature extends from the first permanent settlement at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607, to the calling of the Stamp Act Congress in 1765. It is the period of beginnings, the seedtime, as it were, for the later growth into flower and fruitage during the period of our independent national life. The first business of the colonists was to establish themselves on the new continent-to clear the forests and build homes, open up farms and pasture lands, construct roads and establish means of transportation and communication, overcome the hostile Indian tribes, and organize all the forces for a new religious, social, and economic life. This constructive and formative work naturally consumed the interests and energies of the colonists so largely that little time was left for the development of literature. Moreover, there was no unity of government or of purpose in the earlier part of the colonial period. Different European nations had established colonies on the new continent, and a struggle for supremacy inevitably followed. The history of the colonial period gives us the details of this struggle for supremacy, a struggle which, after narrowing down to a fierce conflict between France and England, was finally settled in England's favor by the Treaty of Paris in 1763. Tendencies toward union. Naturally during the latter part of this struggle the English colonies were drawn into a closer union for defense against their common enemy, the French and their Indian allies; and this tendency toward union and self-defense very soon began to express itself in opposition to the restrictive and oppressive policies of government imposed upon the colonies by the mother country, England. The second large task of the American colonists, then, was that of consolidation and united action for the purposes of obtaining absolute independence from foreign domination. In 1765, two years after the conclusion of the Treaty of Paris, the Stamp Act was passed by the English Parliament, and within a few months a colonial congress, called the Stamp Act Congress, met in Philadelphia to protest against this unjust method of taxation. This significant event may be said to mark the beginning of formal opposition to English sovereignty over the American colonies, and may be considered as marking the close of the colonial period. Nature of colonial literature. The literature of the colonial period is, as we might expect, given over largely to purely descriptive, historical, and theological writing. The new country, the strange kinds of life revealed here, and the incidents attendant upon the hardships and dangers of pioneer settlement furnished the first material for record. Geographical and descriptive narratives and theological discussions, then, make up the great body of the written record of the period. Practically no purely artistic literature was produced. The little poetry that was composed was for the most part crude and bungling and based on artificial foreign models. No purely imaginative literature was written during these strenuous times, and hence the written records which have come down to us, important as they are from an historical or antiquarian standpoint, have little or no artistic value or purely literary appeal for modern readers. Method of treatment. In a brief survey of the principal literary products of the colonial period, we may conveniently |