LITR 4231 Early American Literature 2012 Student Midterm Samples #1. Long essay describing and focusing learning, challenges, issues concerning Early American Literature. (6-8 paragraphs)

Adam Glasgow

A Modern Perspective on Life and Literature Before and After the Enlightenment

To me, this course feels like it could be split into two separate courses – before and after the Enlightenment. Before the Enlightenment American history was scattered. Many small groups of Native Americans, some travelers, and eventually European colonists made up America at the time. There is no unified group of people, and thus, no easy to understand straightforward historical narrative to tell. This, in my opinion, makes this era fascinating, even though it makes it more disorienting.

There are so many stories and so many people we know so little about who lived right here. Native American origin stories, captivity narratives, and Puritan writings are some examples of these stories. Taking a peak at those people via those stories is not only rewarding for curiosities sake, it also forces us to take a few steps back and consider different perspectives. As Americans we tend to have a certain sense of entitlement about where we live. This is our land, we choose who comes in and out, and we make the rules. Because humans live such relatively short lives, it feels like it has been this way forever. Obviously it hasn’t, but often cold facts that are understandable in the abstract do not penetrate the thick walls of limited human perception. It doesn’t matter if that isn’t really true, it still feels true. Basically, I think it’s hard for most people to imagine an America before there was a United States of America, because to people today, that’s what America means. Reading pre-Enlightenment literature forces the reader to consider that time period in a way they probably usually do not. And if the literature is well written and relatable, and what we have read in this course has been so far, it becomes easier to imagine that time period and what it might have been like to experience it firsthand.

Take, for example, the story of Cabeza de Vaca. In his travels, de Vaca saw Cuba, Florida, and Galveston. It is easy for us to imagine modern Cuba and Florida, and we do not even need to imagine Galveston, because of its proximity to us. With Galveston, we even know where the roads, beaches, restaurants, and hotels are. We understand the lay of the land. While it’s easy to say that one understands that Galveston wasn’t always so heavily populated and full of buildings and paved roads, reading about Cabeza de Vaca’s adventures through the area allows us to understand that idea at a level past simply conceptualizing it. We can vicariously live it. This is one of the gifts literature gives us.

Post-Enlightenment early American literature seems a different beast entirely. These are the origins of the America we live in today, and so the figures we read about begin to become much more recognizable. Instead of explorers we may be unfamiliar with, or tribes that seem mysterious to us, we read instead of Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Paine – people who are the roots of the society we live in today. Reading about them is interesting, but for entirely different reasons than pre-Enlightenment reading is interesting. First, and most obviously, it is interesting because you can an inside view of the founding of the country we live in. Secondly, a lot of people like to insist that their political opinions are correct because they endorse “what the founders intended.” These types of claims often go unchecked, but having a more full knowledge about what the founders actually thought and wrote better equips the reader to know when people like this are full of hot air. A more informed citizen is a more effective citizen.

The Enlightenment is without a doubt the most influential period on our modern lives. While Enlightenment writing may not be as fun to read as some of the rest of the early American writings, its focus on science, reason, democracy, and economics paved the way for a move developed society. From Isaac Newton to John Locke to Thomas Paine and Benjamin Franklin, Enlightenment writers forever changed the way we looked at the world. More naturalistic instead of superstitious and a tendency towards secularism and away from theocracies are only a few examples of Enlightenment ideals that we take for granted now. It was with these ideals that modern science, including everything from sweeping discoveries (like evolution) to modern medicine, is built upon. And it is these within the realm of these discoveries that we live our lives. The better we understand the Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment, the better we can understand ourselves.

Being able to observe the differences between pre and post Enlightenment writings has been one of the most fun and intriguing parts of this course for me. While I have obviously read literature from before, during, and after the Enlightenment before, I had never done it in such a way that allowed me to consider the Enlightenment’s direct impact on the life and literature of the time.