第四十九篇
The Beginning of American Literature
American has always been a land of beginnings. After Europeans‘discovered' America in the fifteenth century, the mysterious New World became for many people a genuine hope of a new life, an escape from poverty and persecution, a chance to start again. We can say that, as nation, America begins with that hope. When, however, does American literature begin?
American literature begins with American experiences. Long before the first colonists arrived, before Christopher Columbus1, before the Northmen who 'found' America about the year 1,000, Native Americans lived here. Each tribe's literature was tightly woven into the fabric of daily life and reflected the unmistakably American experience of lining with the land2. Another kind of experience, one filled with fear and excitement, found its expression in the reports that Columbus and other explorers sent home in Spain, French and English. In addition, the journals of the people who lived and died in the New England wilderness3 tell unforgettable tales of hard and sometimes heartbreaking experiences of those early years.
Experience, then, is the key to early American literature. The New World provided a great variety of experiences, and these experiences demanded a wide variety of expressions by an even wider variety of early American writers. These writers included John Smith, who spent only two-and-a-half years on the American continent. They included Jonathan Edwards and William Byrd, who thought of themselves as British subjects, never suspecting a revolution that would create a United States of America with a literature of its own. American Indians, explorers,來源：考試大
Puritan ministers, frontier wives, plantation owner - they are all the creators of the first American literature.
詞匯：
colonist n. 殖民者
subject n.臣民
Puritan adj.清教徒的
注釋：
1. Christopher Columbus 克里斯托弗·哥倫布，美洲新大陸的發(fā)現(xiàn)者
2. Each tribe's literature was tightly woven into the fabric of daily life and reflected the unmistakably American experience of lining with the land. 每個部落的文學都緊密地交織到日常生活的架構中去，反映了和土地密切相連的確鑿無疑的美洲生活經(jīng)歷。
3. New England wilderness 新英格蘭的荒原，新英格蘭指如今美國東北部的幾個州，為來自歐洲的殖民者最早定居的地區(qū)。
The Beginning of American Literature
American has always been a land of beginnings. After Europeans‘discovered' America in the fifteenth century, the mysterious New World became for many people a genuine hope of a new life, an escape from poverty and persecution, a chance to start again. We can say that, as nation, America begins with that hope. When, however, does American literature begin?
American literature begins with American experiences. Long before the first colonists arrived, before Christopher Columbus1, before the Northmen who 'found' America about the year 1,000, Native Americans lived here. Each tribe's literature was tightly woven into the fabric of daily life and reflected the unmistakably American experience of lining with the land2. Another kind of experience, one filled with fear and excitement, found its expression in the reports that Columbus and other explorers sent home in Spain, French and English. In addition, the journals of the people who lived and died in the New England wilderness3 tell unforgettable tales of hard and sometimes heartbreaking experiences of those early years.
Experience, then, is the key to early American literature. The New World provided a great variety of experiences, and these experiences demanded a wide variety of expressions by an even wider variety of early American writers. These writers included John Smith, who spent only two-and-a-half years on the American continent. They included Jonathan Edwards and William Byrd, who thought of themselves as British subjects, never suspecting a revolution that would create a United States of America with a literature of its own. American Indians, explorers,來源：考試大
Puritan ministers, frontier wives, plantation owner - they are all the creators of the first American literature.
詞匯：
colonist n. 殖民者
subject n.臣民
Puritan adj.清教徒的
注釋：
1. Christopher Columbus 克里斯托弗·哥倫布，美洲新大陸的發(fā)現(xiàn)者
2. Each tribe's literature was tightly woven into the fabric of daily life and reflected the unmistakably American experience of lining with the land. 每個部落的文學都緊密地交織到日常生活的架構中去，反映了和土地密切相連的確鑿無疑的美洲生活經(jīng)歷。
3. New England wilderness 新英格蘭的荒原，新英格蘭指如今美國東北部的幾個州，為來自歐洲的殖民者最早定居的地區(qū)。