1.Early in the seventeenth century, the English settlements in Virginia and Massachusetts began the main stream of what we recognize as the American national history。
2.The earliest settlers in America include Dutch, Swedes, Germans, French,portugueseSpaniards, Italians and Portuguese。
3.The first permanent English settlement in North America was established at Jamestown， Virginia， in 1607.
4.Captain John Smith’s reports of exploration, published in the early 1600s, have been described as the first distinctly American literature to be written in English.
5.There was a little of the religious ferment ans zeal that inspired such a tide of literature to flow Puritan New England。
6.The Puritans had come to New English for the sake of religious freedom， while Virginia had been planted mainly as a commercial venture.
7.Hard work， thrift， piety and sobriety were the Puritan values that dominated much of the earliest American writing, including the sermons， books， and letters of such noted Puritan clergymen as John Cotton and Cotton Mather。
8.William Bradford, first governor of Plymouth, and John Winthrop， who held the same post at Boston， were superior to even the remarkable qualities that distinguished many of their associations。 Each has left a priceless gift: the former， The History of Plymouth plantation, the latter， the History of New England。
9.The best way to learn more of the colonial Puritan mind is to meet two important figures， John Cotton and Roger Williams。
10.Most Puritan verse was directly plodding， but the work of two writers, Anne Bradstreet and Edward Taylor, rose to the level of real poetry。
1.Who were the earliest settlers？ Where were they then? Who was the most influential group？
2.What were the first American writings？
3.Could you give a description of American Puritans？
1.As we have seen， theology dominated the Puritan phase of American writing。 Politics was the next great subject to command the attention of the best minds.
2.Freedom was won as much by the fiery rhetoric of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense and the eloquence of the Declaration of Independence as by the weapons of Washington or Lafayette.
3.The British government hampered colonial economy by requiring Americans to ship raw materials abroad and to import finished goods at prices higher than the lost of making them in this country.
4.American Enlightenment dealt a decisive blow upon the puritan traditions and brought to life secular education and literature.
5.The secular ideals of American Enlightenment were exemplified in the life and career of Benjamin Franklin, who instructed his countrymen as a printer， not a priest。
6.In 1783， the year the United States achieved its independence， Noah Webster declared， “America must be as independent in literature as she is in politics, as famous for the arts as for arms” .
7.Born in Boston in 1706， Benjamin Franklin went to Philadelphia as a young man and began his career as a printer。
8.From 1732 to 1758， Franklin wrote and published his famous Poor Richard’s Almanac， an annual collection of proverbs.
9.Thomas Paine was the “Great Commoner of Mankind"， son of a nominal Quaker of Thetford, England.
10.On January 10，1776， Paine’s famous pamphlets Common Sense appeared。
11.Philip Freneau is perhaps the most outstanding writer of the post-Revolutionary period.
12.Freneau was neoclassical by training and taste yet romantic in essential spirit。
13.For a few years, writing with sporadic fluency, Freneau earned his living variously as farmer, journalist and sea captain.
14.As a poet, Freneau heralded American literary independence, his close observation of nature distinguished his treatment of indigenous wild life and other native American subjects。
15.Freneau has been called the “ Father of American Poetry”， and it i ultimately in a historical estimate that Freneau is important.
1.What is your impression upon the person of Benjamin Franklin？
2.What belief does the Autobiography stand for？
3.What is Thomas Paine's Common Sense about？
4.What does Freneau's poem The Wild Hony Suckle indicate？
5.Say something about the style of the Autobiography
1.In 1828 the election of the frontier hero Andrew Jackson as the seventh President of the United States had brought an effective end to the “Virginia Dynasty" of American President。
2.The United States had been a republic of small landlords， without sharp contrasts of wealth.
3.Through the first half of the century the pursuit of simplicity, utility and perfection remained an American characteristic。
4.In 1837 the first college-level institution for women Mount Holyoke Female Seminary， opened in Massachusetts to serve the “muslin sex”。

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