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Literatura Norteamericana IAmerican Literature I
Ricardo Menéndez
10 ECTS Credits 2015-2016
Authors & Contents 1st SemesterStudy Block I
Early American Literature
Captain John Smith – Oct 7th
William Bradford – Oct 14th
Anne Bradstreet – Oct 21st
Mary Rowlandson – Oct 28th
The American Enlightment
Jonathan Edwards – Nov 4th
Benjamin Franklin – Nov 11th
Olaudah Equiano – Nov 18th
Phillis Wheatley – Nov 25th
Romanticism (part I)
Washington Irving – Dec 2nd
James Fenimore Cooper – Dec 9th
Ralph Waldo Emerson – Dec 16th
Henry David Thoroeau – Jan 13th
Review past exams – Jan 20th
Ricardo Menéndez UNED 2015-2016 [email protected]
“
”
It is a solemn sight to see so many Christians lying in
their blood, some here, and some there, like a
company of sheep torn by wolves, all of them stripped
naked by a company of hell-hounds, roaring, singing,
ranting, and insulting, as if they would have torn our
very hearts out; yet the Lord by His almighty power
preserved a number of us from death, for there were
twenty-four of us taken alive and carried captive.
Biography
Works by author
Online resources
Q&A
Ricardo Menéndez UNED 2015-2016 [email protected]
Mary Rowlandson (1637-1711)
Objectives of the Unit Learn about the captivity narrative and understand how Mary Rowlandson
created a prototype of the first distinctly American literary genre
Understand the Puritan jeremiad, the vehicle used by Rowlandson to
convey her firsthand experience
Identify parallelism in the European settlers’ depictions of the indigenous
peoples of America, that helped shape ‘the Imaginary Indian’
Examine the articulation of the modes of description, report, speech, and
comment in a narrative
Analyze an example of Puritan plain style prose and discover the subtext
below the manifest text
Establish connections among the 4 prominent seventeenth-century writers
Ricardo Menéndez UNED 2015-2016 [email protected]
John Smith
William Bradford
Anne Bradstreet
Mary Rowlandson
Unit 4 – Mary Rowlandson
Biography Mary White was born around 1637 in the English town of South Petherton
(Somerset)
She arrived with her nine siblings to Salem (Massachusetts) in 1638
Her father was one of the founders of the town where a fierce episode of King Philip’s War took place, Lancaster
She married Lancaster’s first minister, Reverend Joseph Rowlandson
She had four children, one of whom died in infancy
Until her capture, on February 10th, 1676, Mary Rowlandson led a normal life
Most of the 30 memebers of her household were slaughtered, 8 family memebers, including herself, were abducted
Her six year old daughter was fatally wounded by a bullet during the ransack
She was held hostage with her two surviving children although she was separated and was only allowed brief visits during her 82 day captivity
Her resilency and survival skills surprised everyone, even herself
She was released for a twenty pound ransom on May 2nd, 1676. Her children were also ransomed that same summer.
Ricardo Menéndez UNED 2015-2016 [email protected]
Unit 4 – Mary Rowlandson
King Philip’s War (a.k.a. The First Indian War) The conflict between colonists and the Native American Indians was especially
violent in the period between 1675 and 1676
The conflict took the lives of about 600 colonists and 3,000 Native Americans
The war is named for King Philip, one of the sons of Massasoit and chief of the Wampanoag. His native name was Metacom, Metacomet, or Pometacom
Metacomet, had adopted the English name "King Philip" in honor of the previously-friendly relations between his father and the original Mayflower Pilgrims (who had signed a peace agreement with William Bradford)
It was a futile effort on behalf of the Indians to reclaim the homeland lost to Puritans like the Rowlandsons
Mary Rowlandson’s accounts gives good hints of reasons for the conflict, as the Indians were themselves uprooted and starving due to land pressure by the colonists’ expansionism
The war was the single greatest calamity to occur in seventeenth century Puritan New England and is considered by many to be the deadliest war in the history of European settlement in North America in proportion to the population
Ricardo Menéndez UNED 2015-2016 [email protected]
Unit 4 – Mary Rowlandson
Female Captivity Narratives This narrative has since become a classic of Frontier Literature
Its popularity was so long lasting it was extended beyond the period when it
took place as in the case of the nineteenth-century work fiction: The Last of
the Mohicans by James Fennimore Cooper written in 1826
Mary Rowlandson’s work is the best example of this literature as she was
educated enough to write her own account, rich in details of everyday life
while held captive
The rest of Captivity account of females held captives were normally written
by another person. Though in autobiography tone, they lack an own tone and
style. These Narratives were normally written by clergymen close to the
family who revised and selected which details to include and leave out,
stressing the spiritual purpose and ommiting secular details
Relevant female captivity narratives: Hannah Swart, Hannah Dunstan and
Elizabeth Hanson
Ricardo Menéndez UNED 2015-2016 [email protected]
Unit 4 – Mary Rowlandson
Mary Rowlandson’s Narrative Mary Rowlandson began her narrative in 1677 or 1678 (one or two years after her
captivity)
In Puritan style the work was written with a didactic purpose and its original name was The Soveraignty and Goodness of God. It was originally published in 1682
The book was an instant successs (three editions in Massachusetts, one more in London in the first year)
The London edition of the book set the popular name that has reached our days: A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson
The tone is indebted to the American jeremiad, a style that attributed the misfortunes of the Israelites to their abandonement of their convenant of God and called for repentance to restore the convenant and live happily
Her work would unintentionally turn her into the first lengthy piece of prose written by women in the New England of the time
Currently Rowlandson is celebrated for her role in the development of both the Captivity Narrative and American women’s autobiography
Though written for her surviving children, the book has been an enduring success. There have been at least 30 editions
Ricardo Menéndez UNED 2015-2016 [email protected]
Unit 4 – Mary Rowlandson
Online Resources for Mary Rowlandson Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs Mary Rowlandson
(Gutenberg)
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=851
LibriVox recording of her Narrative:
http://librivox.org/a-narrative-of-the-captivity-and-restoration-of-mrs-
mary-rowlandson-by-mary-rowlandson/
The Mary Rowlandson website: http://www.maryrowlandson.com/
Mary Rowlandson on LION (Proquest Literature Online)
Resources and Links suggested in the Curso Vitual
Interactive map showing the pressure suffered by Native American
Indians
King Philip’s War: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Philip%27s_WarRicardo Menéndez UNED 2015-2016 [email protected]
Unit 4 – Mary Rowlandson
Questions & Answers?Thank you
Remember to complete
Self Evaluation &
Exploratory Questions
from the Book
Online Self Evaluation Quiz
Unit 4 – Mary Rowlandson
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