– The vast sea of American literature springs from the Colonial literature that underwent a fundamental transformation during the interregnum of 1763-1775, as it became apparent that Americans would never reconcile themselves to the authority of the British monarch and parliament. Whatever fealty for England there was at the outset of the Colonial era was worn thin by the French and Indian War, then vaporized by the Stamp Act. It’s quick repeal is the poster child for the adage “Too Little, Too Late.”
Whatever else describes the motley colonial population, it had a general awareness that America was the start of something new, while England and Europe were ancient things, animated by ancient concepts and regimes. New England, New York, New Hampshire, Newport, New Haven – welcome to the new world.
Even cursory research into the origins of American literature pays handsome rewards almost immediately. And, right from the get-go, the twin themes of nature and her human partner are evident, in the earliest American prose and poetry. Rather than locate themselves somewhere along an ancient literary continuum, the first American writers wrote as if they were discovering a new world!
These excerpts show the first American writers to be cheerful and big-hearted; they are content to go all-in on ordinary things, which devotion elevates and sanctifies them. In his Studies in Classic American Literature, D.H. Lawrence writes: “Franklin is the real practical prototype of the American, Crevecoeur is the emotional… Crevecoeur’s Letters are written in a spirit of touching simplicity, almost better than Chateaubriand. You’d think neither of them ever would know how many beans make five.”
From Letters of an American Farmer, by Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur
Thus divided by two interested motives, I have long resisted the desire I had to kill them, until last year, when I thought they increased too much, and my indulgence had been carried too far; it was at the time of swarming when they all came and fixed themselves on the neighbouring trees, from whence they catched those that returned loaded from the fields. This made me resolve to kill as many as I could, and I was just ready to fire, when a bunch of bees as big as my fist, issued from one of the hives, rushed on one of the birds, and probably stung him, for he instantly screamed, and flew, not as before, in an irregular manner, but in a direct line. He was followed by the same bold phalanx, at a considerable distance, which unfortunately becoming too sure of victory, quitted their military array and disbanded themselves.
By this inconsiderate step they lost all that aggregate of force which had made the bird fly off. Perceiving their disorder he immediately returned and snapped as many as he wanted; nay, he had even the impudence to alight on the very twig from which the bees had drove him. I killed him and immediately opened his craw, from which I took 171 bees; I laid them all on a blanket in the sun, and to my great surprise 54 returned to life, licked themselves clean, and joyfully went back to the hive; where they probably informed their companions of such an adventure and escape, as I believe had never happened before to American bees!
As if to demonstrate how near poetry is to the best prose, here is Philip Freneau’s, poem To A Honey Bee. In his benchmark, two volume Literary History of the American Revolution, Moses Coit Tyler wrote of Philip Freneau, “…a true man of genius, the one poet of unquestionable originality granted to America prior to the nineteenth century.”
Thou born to sip the lake or spring,
Or quaff the waters of the stream,
Why hither come on vagrant wing?—
Does Bacchus tempting seem—
Did he, for you, the glass prepare?—
Will I admit you to a share?
Did storms harrass or foes perplex,
Did wasps or king-birds bring dismay—
Did wars distress, or labours vex,
Or did you miss your way?—
A better seat you could not take
Than on the margin of this lake.
Welcome!—I hail you to my glass:
All welcome, here, you find;
Here let the cloud of trouble pass,
Here, be all care resigned.—
This fluid never fails to please,
And drown the griefs of men or bees.
What forced you here, we cannot know,
And you will scarcely tell—
But cheery we would have you go
And bid a glad farewell:
On lighter wings we bid you fly,
Your dart will now all foes defy.
Yet take not oh! too deep a drink,
And in the ocean die;
Here bigger bees than you might sink,
Even bees full six feet high.
Like Pharaoh, then, you would be said
To perish in a sea of red.
Do as you please, your will is mine;
Enjoy it without fear—
And your grave will be this glass of wine,
Your epitaph—a tear—
Go, take your seat in Charon’s boat,
We’ll tell the hive, you died afloat.