【正文】 ices that share a mon context: the geographical region now known as the United States. Native American literatures, which were largely oral at the time of colonial settlement, stand apart as a separate tradition that is itself strong and varied.ForandAmerican Literature: ProseIINTRODUCTIONAmerican Literature: Prose,fictionnonfiction of the American colonies and the United States, written in the English language from about 1600 to the present. This literature captures America’s quest to understand and define itself. From the beginning America was unique in the diversity of its inhabitants。its200European the reasons behind those relationships。beforearrived in America, explorers reported on their voyages to the continent. Through the 1600s American literature grew from exploration narratives to include histories of settlement—both natural histories of the land and social histories of the people. Religious writings expressed the values and beliefs of American colonists.AExploration NarrativesTheliterature about America consists of impressions of America recorded by European explorers after they returned home. Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci provided some of the earliest European descriptions of the American continent in letters and maps from an expedition in 1499 and 1500。ller published Cosmographiae introductio, a collection of documents that included letters written by ItalianSpanish navigator Christopher Columbus to his sponsors, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain. Such texts were circulated among explorers and highranking political officials who made decisions about funding further expeditions.Theworkss narratives focused on the land now called Venezuela, he became a key figure in the history of the British in North America when he founded the first English colony in America, the Roanoke Colony, in 1585 under the sponsorship of Queen Elizabeth I, on an island off the coast of what is now North Carolina.Inofs continued support of the Roanoke Colony, whose first settlement had just failed. Harriot39。laterby Hakluyt included The Fifth Voyage of M. John White into the West Indies and Parts of America called Virginia, in the Year 1590 (1593), which had been written by John White. White’s work centered on a great mystery. He had led a group of colonists who founded a second colony on Roanoke Island, and after the birth of the first British child in the Americas, White’s granddaughter Virginia Dare, he returned to England for supplies. Upon his return to Roanoke, all signs of the colony were gone. The fate of the colony remains a mystery to this day.BHistoriesTheofBradford,s Relation (1622) by an unknown author—provided extensive source material for Bradford when he recalled the earliest years of his colony. John Winthrop, who served as governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony from 1630 to 1649, kept extensive journals that were published nearly 200 years later as History of New England from 1630 to 1649 (18251826). Another important historian of early America was Thomas Morton, whose New English Canaan (16341635) used humor in portraying what he considered to be the overbearing and intolerant qualities of the Puritans.CReligious WritingsHistoriesearlys will. Nearly all events could be explained from this religious perspective: Storms and sicknesses might represent God39。 a bountiful harvest might signify God39。s son Cotton Mather—in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Religious writings recorded strenuous debates about church doctrine, such as the role of freewill and good works in an individual’s salvation, although certain issues discussed by the theologians went beyond religion. Williams’s A Key into the Language of America (1643), for example, was remarkable for its efforts to understand America39。contacts War (after a Wampanoag chief, Metaet, whom the colonists called Philip). In A Brief History of the War with the Indians in New England (1676), Mather urged his munity to reform so that God would not subject them to more trials of that sort.Matheralsos efforts to make sense of that suffering. Her story became the model for a new genre of early American literature: captivity narratives. Such accounts became staples of American prose and eventually provided material for American fiction. While still religious in tone and purpose, captivity narratives emphasized the experiences of individuals rather than the progress of nations. They also incorporated many of the fundamentals of fiction, making use of sympathetic characters, dramatic action and setting, and vividly portrayed sources of evil in stereotypic renditions of Indian savagery.Thewitchs More Wonders of the Invisible World (1700) offered a biting response to Mather and the hysteria of religious leaders involved in the Salem witchhunt. As a result of his interest in witchcraft and of Calef39。theAmerican prose underwent tremendous changes in form, theme, and purpose as the colonies moved toward declaring their independence from Great Britain. As the century began, prose remained primarily religious in its endeavors to make sense of what still seemed a decidedly new world. As the century wore on, political thought—especially regarding the relationship between the colonies and the mother country—increasingly occupied American writers.AReligious WritingsAmericanwriting in the 1700s reached a height of drama in “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” (1741), the bestknown sermon by clergyman Jonathan Edwards. The strength of this appeal to religious fear left his congregation in tears. A powerful orator, Edwards led a revival movement known as the Great Awakening to revitalize religious practice in the colonies. Edwards39。s best religious works were also philosophical investigations. In A Careful and Strict Enquiry into … Notions of … Freedom of Will … (1754), Edwards argues that human actions are predetermined by God, thus negating the notion of free will.Cottonremain