Materials . . .

Hannah More handout

That Hannah More handout that we read for the second day of class in Politics in American Literature? Here it is.

Fiction Appreciation, Fall 2006

Here's the syllabus for my Fall 2006 section of Fiction Appreciation.

Politics in American Literature, Fall 2006

Here's the syllabus for Politics in American Literature. A week before classes began, I learned that Lillie Devereux Blake's Fettered for Life has gone out of print, which is most regretful. As a consequence, there is hole in the center of the reading list that we will fill with various short readings.

American Literature 1, Fall 2006

Here is the syllabus for this fall's section of American Literature 1. (The word list is over here.)

Captain Smith and Pocahontas (mezzotint)

Click on the image for a larger version. For an even larger file of this scanned mezzotint, use the link in the extended body of this post.

Politics in American Literature loses text

The bookstore tells me that Fettered for Life is out of print, and no copies are available. So ... it will not be on our reading schedule.

Your Loving Son, Richard Frethorne, Martins Hundred

In letters home to his parents, Richard Frethorne described a miserable life as an indentured servant in the Virginia colony.

Thomas Morton's Ma-Re Mount

Thomas Morton first came to New England in 1622, the date mentioned at the start of the often-anthologized passage from The Second Book of his 1637 work, New English Canaan. When he returned in 1625, he took over a failed farming settlement, Mount Wollaston, renamed it "Mar-Re Mount," and sought prosperity managing the settlement as a trading outpost. The famous Chapter XIV of The Third Book of New English Canaan, "Of the Revels of New Canaan," describes some of his methods for attracting visitors (and potential trading partners) from the local Native American community.

Emmanuel Altham's Wessagusset

More secular adventurers from the Company of Adventurers for New Plymouth settled at Wessagusset.

William Bradford's Plymouth Plantation

Plymouth Rock, which is much smaller than most people expect, lies under the granite house-like structure by the road. The first Pilgrim settlement--the first permanent European settlement in the New World--was established not more than a block from here. William Bradford's Of Plymouth Plantation chronicles the history of this settlement.

Samuel de Champlain in Massachusetts and the Great Lakes

Samuel de Champlain, the French explorer, wrote many works describing his travels to New France. The editors of the Norton Anthology of American Literature identify the area to the north of Plymouth Harbor as the setting at the start of their excerpts from Henry P. Biggar's 1922 edition of The Works of Samuel de Champlain. Their selection, they report in the footnotes on page 88, describes events from Champlain's "leisurely" exploration of most of the Massachusetts coast. This area, of course, would soon be settled by English pilgrims and other colonists. See Samuel de Champlain, "from The Voyages of Sieur de Champlain," The Norton Anthology of American Literature, ed. Nina Baym (New York: Norton) 86-103.

John Smith's Jamestown

This Google Earth placemark file takes you to the center of the original triangular fort of Jamestown, the setting for the early American writings by Edward Maria Wingfield, the first President of the colony, and, more famously, John Smith, the later leader so often associated with Pocahontas.